Anglophone World Research Articles

Translating and Imaging China: Anthologies of Modern Chinese Drama in English Translation

This article is an investigation of English-language anthologies of modern Chinese drama that emerged during the later twentieth century. Since 1970, approximately ten such anthologies have been published in the anglophone world. These anthologies played a critical role in constructing modern Chinese drama as a literary genre and in projecting the image of China as a successful socialist nation. By analysing these ten anthologies in terms of the criteria that influenced the selection of plays, this article aims to shed light on how such translation anthologies contributed to the (re)construction of the image of modern Chinese drama in the English-speaking world. This process of play selection is shaped by two primary factors: the first is the predominant national ideology in the source culture, which affects the thematics of the translation anthologies; the second is the individual aesthetics of the anthologists, which significantly influence their selection of specific plays. The article concludes with a consideration of the varied canon of modern Chinese drama across different moments in the later twentieth century as it has been established by anthologies in English-speaking countries.

“E-waste” Colonialism: Mechanism of Late Modernity in Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide

Abstract Among numerous literary works on international waste trade, by way of which the toxic waste has been exported basically from developed countries to underdeveloped areas, the Chinese writer Chen Qiufan’s Waste Tide is the only one that examines one of the most toxic waste streams, namely, the electronic waste, or the e-waste. However, this particular novel has not received much critical attention in the anglophone world. The few studies on this science fiction tend to focus on the capital market, the conflict between global and local, or the alienation of human and nature, neglecting its significant thematic concern on the e-waste. In this context, this study seeks to address this gap by analyzing the author’s focus on the neglected issue of e-waste in the system of waste colonialism. By exploring this work from the perspective of waste colonialism, this study attempts to disclose how the e-waste functions as a special symbol of late modernity and in what mechanism late modernity works to exert its effect respectively on economic-political institutions, knowledge system, and human cognition of their own subjectivity. Significantly, this study will argue that, in late modernity, the system of waste colonialism has developed into what this study terms “e-waste” colonialism, promoting the reconsolidation of power structure, the intensification of expert knowledge, and the deconstruction of human subjectivity.

The irresistible rise of the notion of terroir

ABSTRACT The use of the term terroir is now widespread in the discourse around wine and food more generally. It is assumed to have a long-standing usage yet the growth in use of the term (both in France and in the Anglophone world) is comparatively recent. By using Google Ngram data this study charts the timescale and impact of this rise. The analysis then uses Google Ngram plus (1) the quantitative analysis of a qualitative study and (2) textual analysis of British newspapers to explore this development for wine producers, intermediaries and consumers. A case study of the wine magazine Decanter adds confirmation to the overall proposition. The reasons for this rise in the use of terroir are explored examining both cultural and economic factors, including the changing supply and demand for wine over the last half-century, the explosion in the number of online wine intermediaries and consumers’ drive to find authentic products which afford them opportunities for value co-creation. Overall, the study develops and underlines the ways in which terroir as currently used is pre-eminently a social construct – offering both ‘phatic communion’ and an instant connotation of quality to wine communities without requiring any explanation of what it actually entails.

Romanticism and Deaf Justice

ABSTRACT Thomas Holcroft’s Deaf and Dumb (1801), an adaptation of J. N. Bouilly’s L’Abbé de L’Épée (1799), is a foundational story for deaf justice that models educational access as a route to self-determination for deaf people. Based on the real story of the Comte de Solar, Bouilly’s play, and its many translations, recounts the story of an abandoned deaf child who is rescued by the Abbé, taught sign language and restored to his family. This article follows the progress of the tale as it is reworked by deaf and hearing writers, circulating extensively in many genres on both sides of the Atlantic over the next two hundred years. Holcroft’s version is closely tied to fundraising for deaf schools, and is an important example of transatlantic exchange between deaf Anglophone and Francophone worlds. Although Holcroft’s play was embraced by pioneer deaf educators, such as Laurent Clerc, its sentimentality has proved to be problematic, as this article will also explore. The Solar story is, nevertheless, significant for the attention it pays to a number of deaf justice issues: the rights to family life and name; property ownership and inheritance; education and literacy; access to communication and community; and legal protections.

East Asian Social Science: State of the Art or Next Big Thing?

The paper offers a cursory overview of the state of social scientific knowledge production in East Asia. Conceptually, East Asia is strongly anchored in Eurocentric premises. These have been questioned not only by postcolonial critics but also by the globalization of social reality that has made them theoretically untenable. Steeped in epistemological conservatism and an empiricism inherited from the Anglophone world, East Asia does not yet seem ready to let go of the delusionary certainty these premises provide and of the short-term gratifications the construction of more of the same awards. Given its position in the world, the region should be poised to become a genuine social scientific innovator. But this presupposes coming to terms with an intellectual legacy that has run its course.

Constructing Identities in a Diverse School Setting: From Finnish Learners to Multilingual Experts

ABSTRACT This article investigates how Shanaya and Zona, two 11-year-old multilingual migrant children, construct identities as knowledgeable, multilingual, and socially aware experts in a comprehensive school in Finland. I use ethnographic data that includes school observation and interviews to show how they find moments for overcoming disadvantageous circumstances through identity construction, and thus empower themselves. This empowerment seems to happen in informal situations, implying that there is little space for being something other than Finnish or Finnish-speaking elsewhere in the school. This study describes the children’s lived experience holistically by showing how linguistic, ethnic, and social identity categories intertwine and manifest in language use. It adds to our knowledge of the empowerment of young migrant children in school-related discourses outside of the anglophone world and calls for acknowledging children’s voices in developing education globally.

"But They Were a Race of Whites": Race and the Making of Ancient Slavery in the Anglophone World, 1785–1980

summary: Today, few ancient historians believe that Greek and Roman slavery had anything to do with race or racism. But when histories of ancient slavery were first written in the 1780s, the connection was assumed. This article explores how and why race and racism persisted in Anglophone historiography on ancient slavery into the twentieth century, only disappearing in the 1950s. I argue that it might be time to reopen the book on whether ancient slavery was a racialized institution. Adopting insights from premodern critical race studies (PCRS), I argue that the real differences between ancient and Atlantic-world slaveries should not be seen in terms of discontinuity and rupture. Rather, I see the question through what Margo Hendricks calls a "bidirectional gaze," by which social arrangements of the past few centuries might bear uncanny resemblance to institutions of the ancient past.

Danmei and/as Fanfiction: Translations, Variations, and the Digital Semiosphere

Since the late 1990s, Chinese internet publishing has seen a surge in literary production in terms of danmei, which are webnovels that share many of the features of Anglophone fanfiction. Thanks in part to recent live-action adaptations, there has been an influx of new Western and Chinese diaspora readers of danmei. Juxtaposing these bodies of literature in English in particular enables us to examine the complexities of how danmei are newly circulating in the Anglophone world and have become available themselves for transformative work, as readers also write fanfiction based on danmei. This paper offers a comparative reading of the following three such texts, which explore trauma recovery through the arc of romance: Tianya Ke, a danmei novel by Priest; Notebook No. 6 by magdaliny, a novella-length piece of fanfiction based on Marvel characters; and orange_crushed’s Strays, a fanfiction based on the live-action drama that was, in turn, based on Tianya Ke. The space described by Lotman’s semiosphere offers an additional model in which these texts reflect on one another; furthermore, along the porous digital border between fanfiction, danmei in translation, and fan novels based on danmei, readers and writers negotiate and vex contemporary culture.

Young Slapsauces and Old Trout: Translating Die Leiden des jungen Werthers

ABSTRACT Despite the appearance of Goethe’s reworked version of the novel in 1787, the Werther that made all the running in the anglophone world, until well into the nineteenth century, was a relay translation from the French, based on the Weygand second edition of 1775. In this paper I discuss some of the issues I have encountered in attempting to translate into English Werther in its first and most influential incarnation. These include what has been called the ‘instability of originals’ and its implications for translators, and also how the anglophone translator should approach the novel’s extensive adaptation from James Macpherson’s intrinsically unstable Ossian.

Children's geographies: Methodological approaches and inspiration not only for geographers

Children's geography, a rapidly developing subdiscipline of geography, paradoxically remains overlooked by the broader scientific geographical community. Despite its recognition in the Anglophone world, it lacks interest in other cultural-geographical regions. This article aims to introduce the Czech and Slovak scientific community to children's geography and demonstrate how this discipline can serve as inspiration for traditional geographic fields. One of the main focuses is on innovative methodologies and ethical considerations that permeate each study, particularly regarding minority groups. This contribution seeks to integrate children's geography into the mainstream of geographical research in both Czechia and Slovakia. The article presents the development of children's geography, its key ideas, and arguments that may enrich Czech and Slovak geography. It emphasizes its potential in exploring spatial aspects of childhood and society, leading to a better understanding of these issues. Emphasizing research ethics leads to a beneficial approach, enabling us to better respond to the needs and interests of children.

Language in international treaties: linguistic and cultural challenges in translating and implementing international multilingual treaties

Existing research on international human rights law has neglected the issues raised by the domestic translation of multilingual treaties and their implications for implementation. This article addresses that gap. It explores the challenges a central concept to an international multilingual treaty, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), presented to States Parties when interpreting and translating the CRPD’s novel central concept of disability (Article 1) and the implications this had for the implementation of the CRPD. The CRPD has been described as representing a ‘paradigm shift’ in thinking about disability in international human rights law. At the heart of this shift is a new understanding of the concept of disability. It moves away from a traditional conceptualisation situated in a medical discourse, towards a concept situated in a social contextual discourse, which views persons with disabilities as subjects with human rights equal to all persons. Little research has explored how the CRPD’s central concept translates beyond the anglophone world. This article employs a distinctive approach to legal translation as a cross-cultural transfer or interaction of discourses. It develops a detailed case study of Cyprus based on primary empirical work (semi-structured interviews and document analysis), then compares the challenges faced by Cyprus with the experiences of Greece and Bulgaria, and then considers these in relation to Iceland’s experiences. The article reveals linguistic and cultural challenges and shows their significance for the implementation of the CRPD. It highlights the risks of domestic misinterpretation and mistranslation and identifies three critical factors to reduce these risks for international multilingual treaties. The article contributes to our understanding of the significance of domestic translation of international multilingual treaties and the implications of this for treaty implementation and helps to open a new research agenda around this.

Jacques Brel's Ne me quitte pas in English: On putting the record straight… and queering it?

This article is part of a wider project investigating the theory and practice of song translation and performance. It derives – specifically – from my own desire to attempt to translate Ne me quitte pas into English. (See: Appendix.) It is designed as an investigation into the tenacious misconception that certain English-language versions of Brel's songs are translations thereof. Using Peter Low's typology, many of these versions can more accurately be described as adaptations or as replacement texts. One objective of this comparative study is to draw attention to the need – in theory – to distinguish between translation and adaptation. This work also calls for more precision in attributing authorship to the lyrics or texts sung by different performers. Examination of eight English-language versions of Ne me quitte pas – an exceptional corpus made up of texts sung by Rod McKuen, Scott Walker, Marc Almond (×2), Momus, Arnold Johnston, Des de Moor and The Black Veils – seeks to illustrate and discuss the history of approaches to rendering this song in English. That is one sense in which this article aims to put the record straight. This aim might also hint at the idea of respecting (high) ‘fidelity’ to the original. However, whether translation, adaptation or replacement text, any Target Text – even if assessed by criteria provided by Song Translation Theory – can only ever be interpreted subjectively. Thus, imagining a single way of putting a record straight is futile. Comparison of versions of Ne me quitte pas can, however, illustrate how different strategies and priorities can ‘succeed’ differently. Understanding the potential for ‘queering’ Ne me quitte pas was a by-product of research and close reading of the texts themselves. As this appears to pertain significantly in a handful of versions in the Anglophone world – but not, seemingly, in Turkish versions – this article seeks also to open up the ‘queering’ (or not) of Brel, in particular, as an avenue of future inquiry.

Christine and the Queens, Chris, Redcar, and navigating gender identity

Gender identity expression continues to be the subject of public discourse. In the past few decades, scholars and members of the general public have questioned the idea of a stable and binary gender identity, which has caused debates in both the anglophone and francophone worlds. Redcar, also known as Christine and the Queens, as well as Chris, is a particularly interesting public figure concerning gender identity and expression because his relationship has evolved throughout his career. The artist has been remarkably open about his relationship with gender throughout the last decade, which has been in the public eye. Redcar is also someone who has found himself between the anglophone and francophone worlds – he expresses a cultural identity that is neither altogether French nor anglophone, but hybrid. As a musician whose journey with gender has been more or less public, it raises the question: How does Redcar use his music, videos, and persona to navigate and express his evolving relationship with gender? Through the use of gender and queer theories, this article demonstrates how Redcar has used these elements to examine and redefine his own gender. This essay will look specifically at the construction of his celebrity persona, followed by a lyrical analysis of the song “iT” from his first album Chaleur humaine (2014) and a scenic analysis from the music video for “5 dols/5 dollars” from his second album Chris (2018) to demonstrate how Redcar’s public experience of gender exploration works to deconstruct the idea of a static gender and instead demonstrates how gender is always in a process of renegotiation.

Political Theory as Philosophy, as Positive Science, and as Critique

Author develops a critical review of the three dominant perspectives in Political Theory: Behaviorist, Empirical-Analitical, Classic and Contemporary Normative Theories, and Dialectical-Critical perspectives. Under the influence of scientific positivism and its critique of metaphysics, especially in the Anglophone world, the Behaviorist political theory has been developed. Its origin lies in the idea of ‘pure political science’ which, as author argues, becomes gradually, a metaphysical perspective of its own kind. Based on criticism of Behaviorist political theory, especially under the influence of Leo Strauss a new, contemporary political theory has been developed by rehabilitation of the classical perspective. For Strauss, as well as for example, for Aristotle, poltical knowledge is tightly connected to ethical action, and the political discourse is always at the same time the ‘ethical-political’. This theoretical perspective is, author suggests, an attempt to reflect upon the very foundations of political community, so in this way it is at the same time a particular ontology, which is the main point of criticism coming from a positivist block. The dialectical – critical political theories have their source, above all, in Hegel’s philosophy, and, especially after Marx and Engels, the task of political theory is understood in a rather ‘activist’ sense as investigation of political systems, institutions and revealing of relations that establish the rule of the privileged. With Critical School of 1930’s this political-theoretical approach attempts to maintain historical perspectives of understanding the society and state and their complex processes. Second important characteristics of this approach is the conception of totality, also coming from Hegel, for who the truth is always a matter of the whole, and not in some particular part. Another important feature is dialectical attitude, in fact, identification of contradictions and their conflict as mover of social and political processes. In the conclusion part, author refers to the idea of a ‘democratic political philosophy’ developed by John Rawls, as possible synthesis of dominant perspectives in political theory.

Media, Cultural Techniques, and the Law: The Other Cornelia Vismann

AbstractIn the Anglophone world of law, the German legal historian and legal theorist Cornelia Vismann (1961–2010) is best known as an acute interpreter of French high theory, especially of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault. This type of reception is, I argue, somewhat distorted. For her English-speaking colleagues, French “poststructuralism” provides the interface that enables Vismann to enter into shared discursive constellations with her Anglo-American critical legal colleagues. But at the same time, such a reception also downplays the very specifically German soil from which her unique scholarship arose. This Article discusses Vismann’s German background as media theory, the discipline that she was mostly associated with by her compatriots. The Article then assesses what Vismann’s media-theoretical contributions potentially offer to the contemporary study of law. For this “other Vismann,” the media-theoretical study of law was, I suggest, a practically oriented critical discipline that focused on law’s “cultural techniques” and how they operated. I also briefly touch upon what is generally known as “German media theory” through key figures such as Friedrich A. Kittler and Bernhard Siegert.

On the Rendering of Extra-Linguistic Cultural References in Chinese-to-English Literary Translation: A Case Study of Xiao Qian’s Translation in the 1930s

In the 1930s, Xiao translated the typical works of Chinese new literature and published them in China in Brief and Furen Magazine, introducing the New Literature Movement to the Anglophone world for the first time. This paper takes a descriptive approach to examine Xiao’s transfer strategies of extralinguistic cultural references in the socio-cultural contexts in which these translated works were reproduced and accepted and to explore the factors influencing the translator’s choice. Within Pedersen’s analytical framework, the textual analysis reveals that the translator always struggled with the inherent tension between foreignization and domestication, which was determined by the unbalanced cultural exchanges between China and the West, Western readers’ understanding of Chinese culture and the skopos of Xiao’s translational action.

Damousi, Joy, Burnard, Trevor and Lester, Alan (eds.), Humanitarianism, Empire and Transnationalism, 1760-1995: Selective Humanity in the Anglophone World

Damousi, Joy, Burnard, Trevor and Lester, Alan (eds.), Humanitarianism, Empire and Transnationalism, 1760-1995: Selective Humanity in the Anglophone World

‘Going to study or plan to stay on?’ Mobility profiles of Angolan and Cape Verdean students in Portugal

AbstractAlthough a relatively small player in the global arena of international student migration/mobility (ISM), Portugal hosts an increasing number of international students, the vast majority of whom are from its former colonies. This paper shifts the debate on ISM away from the Anglophone world by examining the future mobility intentions and outcomes of students and graduates from Angola and Cape Verde who are or were enrolled in Portuguese universities. Based on 85 interviews with 49 participants, we explore their decision‐making processes about the location of their future careers—back in their home country, in Portugal, or elsewhere. We pay particular attention to how their thinking about their future lives—and where they want to be—changes during the course of their study in Portugal. A close reading of the participants' narratives enables the construction of a fourfold typology of their sociospatial trajectories (fulfilled and envisaged) and the reasons behind them. We label them: (i) maximisers; (ii) dreamers; (iii) globally mobile; and (iv) runners. These categories are not mutually exclusive and, for any given individual, can change over time, demonstrating the complexity of international students' plans and outcomes.

Settler colonial expansion and the institutionalisation of children in Victoria, Australia

ABSTRACT Recent histories have underlined the importance of understanding the nineteenth-century gold rushes which took place in various parts of the anglophone world in relation to settler colonialism, and this work has advanced understandings of gender, race and Empire in significant ways. However, the field has yet to seriously grapple with questions about the role, treatment and positioning of children. This article will examine the Australian colony of Victoria, which was profoundly transformed by a gold rush beginning in 1851. Through case studies of three families – one white, one Chinese and one Aboriginal – the article will illustrate the complex relationships between poverty, colonialism and carceral institutions for children during the second half of the nineteenth century. These case studies allow an exploration that centres on the lives of the children and families forced to navigate an often-inescapable network of institutions, thereby demonstrating the impossibility of separating these institutions (which form the foundations of our modern-day child protection system) from the project and philosophy of settler colonialism.

From Canadian Surgeon to Chinese Martyr: Dr. Norman Bethune and the Making of a Medical Folk Hero.

This paper reexamines the public memory of Canadian surgeon Norman Bethune. In 1938, Bethune traveled to China to serve at the communist front and to treat soldiers fighting against the invading Japanese army. Throughout China, Bethune is a household name and a communist icon. Back in Canada, however, his name does not evoke the same ubiquity. While Canadians remembered Bethune through biographies, a film, statues, and a small museum, his story in the Anglophone world is confined primarily to the telling of distant history. To explain Bethune's greater notoriety and public presence in China, this essay first turns our attention to Chinese sources that mythologized Bethune's death in 1939. The essay then revisits Chinese propaganda that established Bethune as a lasting political symbol during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. These national efforts show how a volunteer surgeon such as Bethune became such an important figure in a remote foreign country. China's Communist Party turned Bethune's death into a political event to rally support for their war of resistance against Japan. Later, during the tumultuous period of the Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong used Bethune to symbolize unwavering service and loyalty to leader and party. This essay utilizes primary materials in McGill's Osler Library and commentary from the field of memory studies to contextualize Bethune and to situate him within the broader narrative of political education that arose in China during the Cultural Revolution. A layered interpretation of Bethune - as doctor, martyr, and symbolic hero - slowly emerges. Political forces in China transformed his memory into legacy and carry this complicated figure into the present day.