BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Department of Asian Studies//NONSGML Events//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://asia.ubc.ca/events/event/ X-WR-CALDESC:Department of Asian Studies - Events BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20241213T0715Z-1734074151.0485-EO-64667-18@10.19.146.15 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTAMP:20260616T190344Z CREATED:20241212T233426Z LAST-MODIFIED:20241212T233510Z DTSTART;TZID=America/Vancouver:20250116T123000 DTEND;TZID=America/Vancouver:20250116T133000 SUMMARY: 《杜騙新書》如何譯? Adventures in Translating the Ming Dynasty Book of Swin dles DESCRIPTION: The Book of Swindles 杜騙新書 (1617 preface) is said to be the fir st Chinese collection of stories about fraud. Addressed primarily to travel ing merchants of the late Ming era\, the work offers eighty-odd tales of sw indles attempted and accomplished\, most of which are followed by an author ’s comment that drives home the lesson for the […] X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:

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The Book of Swin dles 杜騙新書 (1617 preface) is said to be the first Chinese collection of stories about fraud. Addressed primarily to traveling merchants of the lat e Ming era\, the work offers eighty-odd tales of swindles attempted and acc omplished\, most of which are followed by an author’s comment that drives h ome the lesson for the traveling businessman. The work’s combination of ala rmism about endemic bad faith in society and got-to-hand-it-to-‘em acknowle dgment of the con artist’s skill chimes with certain concerns our own age. The Book has been translated into English as The Book of Swind les (Columbia\, 2017) and More Swindles from the L ate Ming (Columbia\, 2024).

While mostly written in simple c lassical Chinese\, the original work presents a host of challenges for the scholar-translator. The Book has multiple titles. The table of con tents don’t match the contents. Entire stories are missing from some copies . Multiple stories share traces of a common\, obscure\, origin. Other stori es drop in a word or two of local slang. Printer errors abound. Here and th ere appear unmarked puns\, allusions\, subtexts\, and intertexts. Translati ons of the work into modern Chinese mislead. The author\, Zhang Yingyu\, is an enigma. In this talk\, co-translators Bruce Rusk and Christopher Rea wi ll talk about how they identified and navigated these and other challenges\ , and share wise\, wise words for scholars treading into similarly perilous terrains.

This talk is free and open to the public. No registration is required.

Date & Time:
Thursday\, January 16 \, 2025 | 12:30pm – 1:30pm

Location:
CK Choi Bu ilding\, Room 120\, 1855 West Mall\, Vancouver

Speakers

Bruce Rusk is a cultural historian of China who studies the Ming (1368–164 4) through mid-Qing (1644–1911) periods. His work focuses on textual studie s\, literary culture\, writing systems\, and the history of trust and authe nticity. He is an associate professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Christopher Rea is a literary and cultural historian whos e research focuses on the modern Chinese-speaking world. He is a Professor of Modern Chinese Literature in the Department of Asian Studies at the Univ ersity of British Columbia.

 

This event is co-hosted by th e Department of Asian Studies at UBC and the Centre for Chinese Research at UBC.

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