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How have Chinese translations and interpretations reshaped African American ideas of race, freedom, resistance and literature?Growing out of seventeen years of transnational collaboration between Joe Lockard (Arizona State University) and Penglu Shi (Xi’an Jiaotong University, China), this lecture presents a history of how Black America has been translated, interpreted and reimagined in China. Their joint work, ranging from translating African American slave narratives to studying Chinese receptions of Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Langston Hughes and so on, demonstrates the value of cross-cultural scholarship. Together, they trace Chinese understandings of race, freedom, education, revolution and literary value, while identifying omissions and productive misreadings.
Learn how sustained scholarly collaboration can foster critical reflection and mutual understandings. After Penglu Shi’s presentation, guests will have the opportunity to engage in a Q&A. Light refreshments will be served.
Penglu Shi is Professor of English at Xi’an Jiaotong University and Associate Editor of The Explicator. Her research focuses on African American literature, American Studies and China–U.S. literary relations. Her recent monograph, A Study of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, examines the Pulitzer Prize as a cultural institution that shapes canon formation, national identity and literary value.
This Humanities Institute event is supported by the Department of English, School of International Letters and Cultures, The Asia Center, and Project Humanities as part of 2026 Humanities Week programming.
More information/RSVP: https://asuevents.asu.edu/event/reading-black-america-china
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1102 S. McAllister Avenue, Tempe, AZ, United States, Arizona 85281
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