HKU Moodle

How has China been imagined in Western literary and intellectual culture? And what does the history of this representation have to do with the act of translating Chinese literature into English? As the course description explains,

Translation not only represents the meaning of the statement translated, but represents as well the culture of the language in which the statement originated. How, then, have translations interacted with the representation of China on display in other works of Western literature? By reading literary translations from Chinese into English alongside the tradition of literary imagination of China (sometimes known as “Orientalism”), this class will examine how translation has engaged with, confirmed, altered, and shaped the notion of China as understood in the West.

By looking closely at primary and secondary materials, over the course of the semester we will become better readers and better translators into English.