Exploring the Role of Activist Translation in Geremie Barm&#x000e9;&#x02019;s Practice of &#x0201c;New Sinology&#x0201d;

Mattias Daly

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Journal of Translation Studies ›› 2024, Vol. 8 ›› Issue (2) : 51-90.

Exploring the Role of Activist Translation in Geremie Barmé’s Practice of “New Sinology”

Mattias Daly

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Abstract

This paper examines translations and corresponding paratexts published by the Australian academic Geremie Barmé ( 白杰明) under the banner of “New Sinology” in 2022. It starts by tracing the origins of New Sinology, an activist approach to studying and interacting with greater China that Barmé proposed in 2005 and which Duncan Campbell and Edward McDonald helped deﬁne in China Heritage Quarterly (2005- 2012) and elsewhere. Barmé’s background as an eyewitness to the Cultural Revolution and his associations with Chinese dissidents are discussed as factors contributing to the development of New Sinology, as is the discipline’s locus in Australia and New Zealand, two English speaking countries adjacent to the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s geographic sphere of power. This paper subsequently examines Barmé’s translation efforts in 2022, a year of tumult in the PRC. Barmé’s translations of a Chinese expatriate’s reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Shanghainese man’s furious reaction to the COVID-19 lockdown, and overseas Chinese students’ reactions to the Beijing Sitong Bridge Incident, A4 Revolution, and Ürümqi apartment block ﬁre are examined alongside the extensive contextualizing writings Barmé attaches to these translations. Informed by the writings of Mona Baker and Maria Tymoczko, this paper ﬁnds that Barmé’s translations are framed so as to weave translated voices into a narrative of intellectual resistance spanning centuries of Chinese history and discusses the implications of this approach. The article ends with an attempt to use a novel metaphor inspired by sampling-based music production to better understand the nature of activist translation.

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New Sinology / Geremie Barmé / activist translation / Sinophones / Chinese dissidents / Mona Baker / Maria Tymoczko

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Mattias Daly. Exploring the Role of Activist Translation in Geremie Barmé’s Practice of “New Sinology”[J]. Journal of Translation Studies. 2024, 8(2): 51-90

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