IEAS launched a new Translation Grants scheme in Fall 2024. We will run the program again in Fall 2025, and congratulate the inaugural awardees:
Ann Chen, East Asian Languages and Cultures, will translate excerpts from The Zither Book of the Deadwood Zen (枯木禪琴譜). Written by a monk in the 1890s, this 8-volume, 300 page text blends musical theory, Buddhist philosophy, and ritual practice, and is the only known Buddhist zither book in Chinese history. Ann’s translations will include the theoretical and philosophical essays “On the Virtues of Zither” 琴德論, “On Music and Sound” 音聲論, “The Sixteen Aesthetics of Sounds” 辨音十六則, "Essentials of Zither Song Composition" 著作琴曲要略 and Zither songs, including "Song of the Lotus Society" 蓮社引, and "Kinnara Dharma Tune" 那羅法曲. “The Chinese zither—a Confucian ritualistic instrument central to moral cultivation—has been considered antithetical to Buddhism, especially within the vinaya precepts that generally oppose instrumental music," Ann writes. "However, the monk-author of Deadwood Zen reimagines the zither as a vehicle for spiritual enlightenment and uses it to embody Buddhist concepts such as (dis)enchantment and conditionality.”
Lianbi Ji, Comparative Literature, received an IEAS Translation Award to support her translation of Yu-guan [玉官] by Taiwan-born writer and scholar Xu Dishan (1894-1941). First published in Hong Kong literary magazine Da feng 大風 (no. 29-36) in 1939, Xu Di's novella will interest readers and scholars of missionary history in South China, South Seas migration and displacement, and women’s education and spiritual development in early 20th century Chinese literature. "Simultaneously a global history of Christian imperial and colonial expansion, a national history grounded in a Hokkien town emptied by southward migration, and a woman’s personal history of survival, education, work, family, as well as of hope, desire, and depression," writes Lianbi, "Yu-guan brings into the Chinese literary scene a complex modern woman," widowed in the first Sino-Japanese war, who turns to Christianity.
Pumho Karimi, Comparative Literature, will translate four Japanese short stories: Hayashi Fumiko’s 運命/ “Destiny”, (1939), Nakajima Atsushi’s マリアン/ “Maria” (1942) , Shimao Toshio’s はまべのうた/ “Song of the Beach” (1946), and Dazai Osamu’s 家庭の幸 福/ “Household Welfare” (1949). “Written in the earlier part of the Shōwa period (1925-1988), a period marked by empire, war, and its aftermath,” Pumho writes, “these works will shed new light, for English readers, on the experiences and perspectives of people who moved from the imperial metropole (Japanese mainland) to the (semi)-colonial periphery: China in Hayashi’s case and Palau in Nakajima’s.” Shimao’s short story focuses on the establishment of military bases in Okinawa during WWII, while Dazai’s story “satirically captures the enduring negative impact of bureaucracy on the Japanese citizenry from a class perspective in the immediate postwar period."