Speaker Biography
Luo Xuanmin is a Distinguished Professor (Level II) at Tsinghua University and currently serves as a Junwu Chair Professor at Guangxi University and Dean of the Academy of Translation and Intercultural Communication. His major professional affiliations include serving as a member of the University Grants Committee (UGC) Humanities Panel (Hong Kong), a foreign member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Humanities and Creative Arts Panel, Editor-in-Chief of Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies (ESCI, Routledge, UK), Editor-in-Chief of the English-language academic journal International Journal of Translation, Interpretation, and Applied Linguistics (IJTIAL, IGI Global, USA), Chair of the Expert Committee (and former President) of the China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese, and a member of the Chinese Writers Association. He has served as a judge for the second, third, and fourth China Book Award (Government Award), as well as for the sixth and seventh Lu Xun Literature Prize. He has published over 200 articles in leading academic journals both in China and internationally, authored and translated more than 40 books, and edited numerous book series. In 2021, his translated work Tongquan on Literature (with an introduction) was published by The Commercial Press, and in 2022, his English monograph Translation and Chinese Modernity was published by Peter Lang Publishing, USA. He has received multiple national and provincial/ministerial awards for academic excellence, most recently the Second Prize in the Eighth National Excellent Scientific Research Achievement Award in Higher Education (Humanities and Social Sciences). He has led and completed two key projects, one general project, and one later-stage funded project of the National Social Science Fund of China. He is a lifetime recipient of the Special Government Allowance granted by the State Council of China.
Lecture Time & Venue
Time: October 30, 15:30–17:00
Venue: Lecture Hall 136, Teaching Building No. 5, Songjiang Campus
Lecture Title
Historical Material Discovery and Academic Innovation: From Tongquan on Fine Arts to Tongquan on Literature
Lecture Abstract
This lecture presents the discovery of historical materials concerning the original source text of Yan Fu’s unfinished translation Tongquan on Fine Arts. Through meticulous archival research, the author unravels a mystery that has perplexed scholarly inquiry into Yan Fu’s literary and aesthetic thought for nearly a century. Drawing on substantial evidence—including email correspondence between the author and his graduate students, transaction records from the Document Services Department of Shanghai Library, and appeals for assistance in locating original source materials overseas—the lecture vividly illustrates the challenges inherent in resolving historical and academic questions. It calls on researchers to fully appreciate the rigor of scholarly inquiry and to accord due respect to the importance and seriousness of historical material discovery in academia. Additionally, the author analyzes Yan Fu’s motivations for translating Tongquan on Fine Arts and his criteria for source text selection within their historical context and sociocultural framework, identifying the historical significance and contemporary value of this translation from a cognitive perspective. Finally, the lecture presents a comparative analysis of the newly published complete translation Tongquan on Literature (The Commercial Press), examining how the translator re-presents the spirit and stylistic qualities of the original text through translation, thereby tracing the century-long journey of translational narrative from Tongquan on Fine Arts to Tongquan on Literature.
Organizers
Distinguished Translation Studies Team, Shanghai International Studies University; Research Group of the Major Project of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Language Sciences, Shanghai International Studies University
