The Perils of Interpreting: The Extraordinary Story of Two Translators Between Qing China and the British Empire

Date(s)： 2023/10/06

Time： 14:00~16:00

Venue： Archives 2nd Conference Hall

Host： Prof. Fu Jia-Chen (Associate research fellow, IMH, AS)

Speaker：Prof. Henrietta Harrison (Professor of Modern Chinese Studies, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford)

Organizer： Western Learning and China Research Group

Abstract:
This talk, based on Henrietta Harrison’s recent book, is about the interpreters for the first British embassy to China in 1793: Li Zibiao 李自標 and George Thomas Staunton.  Both grew up between Europe and China and gained a deep knowledge of the other’s languages, society and culture, but that knowledge was never used because of the growing conflict between China and Britain in the early nineteenth century.  Their story suggests that some Chinese people knew much more about the West than is usually acknowledged and we should look instead at the reasons why that knowledge did not reach senior decision makers.

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