Event
Asian American Across the Disciplines Series presents "Read behind Images: How Picture Books Reinforce Stereotypes" with Professor Juwen Zhang, Willamette University.
Hosted by Dr. Fariha Khan in her course Asian American Food.
Please register here to join by Zoom or RSVP here to join in person.
In this talk, based on his personal experience and recently published book, Translating, Interpreting, and Decolonizing Chinese Fairy Tales, Dr. Juwen Zhang explores how racist stereotypes have deeply ingrained themselves into our lives. He discusses how we may unwittingly perpetuate these stereotypes and emphasizes the importance of cultivating a new awareness of anti-racism. Dr. Zhang highlights the need to critically examine the ideological agenda within the translation of folktales and to seek more equitable and respectful approaches to cross-cultural communication and translation. Through a detailed analysis of a Chinese tale and its English translation and a popular adaptation in a picture book, he demonstrates how anti-Chinese stereotypes subtly influenced the author and illustrator of the picture book, and argues that the picture book, in turn, has further disseminated these harmful stereotypes to generations of children in the US and many other countries.
Juwen Zhang is Professor of Chinese and Folklore at Willamette University, Oregon, with h is Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. He was President of the Western States Folklore Society, and a Fellow of the American Folklore Society (a position he later resigned). His research interests span a wide range from Asian American folklore and folklore theory to folkloric identity and the study of oral narratives. With a focus on recognizing ideological agendas and developing concrete approaches to anticolonialism and antiracism through the study of folk and oral traditions and translation, he has recently published several articles and books, including Oral Traditions in Contemporary China: Healing a Nation (2021); Epidemics in Folk Memory: Tales and Poems from Chinese History (2021); The Magic Love: Fairy Tales from Twenty-First Century China (2021); The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales (2022), and Translating, Interpreting, and Decolonizing Chinese Fairy Tales: A Case Study and Ideological Approach (2024).
Professor Zhang serves as a Co-host of the Podcast Yellow and Brown Tales: Asian American Folklife Today.
About his book: Translating, Interpreting, and Decolonizing Chinese Fairy Tales: A Case Study and Ideological Approach
Through meticulous textual and contextual analysis of the sixteenth-century Chinese tale The Seven Brothers and its fifteen contemporary variants, Juwen Zhang unveils the ways in which the translation and illustration of folk and fairy tales can perpetuate racist stereotypes. By critically examining the conscious and unconscious ideological biases harbored by translators, adapters, and illustrators, the author calls for a paradigm shift in translation practices grounded in decolonization and anti-racism to ensure respectful and inclusive representation of diverse cultures. Translating, Interpreting, and Decolonizing Chinese Fairy Tales not only offers insights for translators, researchers, and educators seeking to leverage folktales and picture books for effective children's education and entertainment, but also challenges our preconceived notions of translated and adapted folk and fairy tales.
Learn more about Professor Zhang here!