This site uses cookies.
Some of these cookies are essential to the operation of the site,
while others help to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.
For more information, please see the ProZ.com privacy policy.
Freelance translator and/or interpreter, Verified site user
Data security
This person has a SecurePRO™ card. Because this person is not a ProZ.com Plus subscriber, to view his or her SecurePRO™ card you must be a ProZ.com Business member or Plus subscriber.
Affiliations
This person is not affiliated with any business or Blue Board record at ProZ.com.
Services
Editing/proofreading, Translation
Expertise
Specializes in:
Food & Drink
Cooking / Culinary
History
Environment & Ecology
Botany
Agriculture
Nutrition
Religion
Photography/Imaging (& Graphic Arts)
Tourism & Travel
Also works in:
Anthropology
Journalism
Printing & Publishing
Education / Pedagogy
Idioms / Maxims / Sayings
More
Less
Rates
Payment methods accepted
PayPal, Check
Portfolio
Sample translations submitted: 1
Chinese to English: The Launch of the English-language Journal, Studies in Chinese Religions General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Religion
Translation - English
Research on Chinese religions in Europe and North America is an important component of Sinology. It first passed through the period of missionary Sinology of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and only at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century in France did it formally enter into the modern system of disciplines. French Sinologists Édouard Chavannes and Paul Pelliot are important foundation builders for the Western study of Chinese religion. They underwent modern scholastic training and furthermore utilized the research methods of sociology and anthropology in their studies of religious practice and belief. On the other hand, they were not satisfied with merely reading and studying the documentary materials, but brought this together with on site investiga- tions, very much broadening the scope of research in this field. They made inscriptions, religious art, archaeological materials, and so forth, all parts of research on Chinese religions. They not only established the new paradigms for study in this area, they also taught by personal examples, training a cohort of professional specialists including Henri Maspero for example, who researched Chinese Daoism and Buddhism, and Marcel Granet, who combined Sinology with sociology and produced in-depth studies of practice and belief in ancient China. After this there were also Paul Demiéville and Erik Zürcher, who without exception produced seminal contributions to this field. The generations of French research- ers have had no shortage of people, invigorating to this day a number of outstanding scholars conducting research in our field.
Since the 1950s and 1960s, one more center of research in Chinese religions has also emerged in North America. Apart from the characteristic in North American research on Chinese religions of carrying on with Europe’s scholarly tradition, something new also makes an appearance: viewing as important the study of modern and present-day forms of practice and belief and furthermore, giving attention to incorporating the new research methods of the humanities and social sciences. For example, North American work of Chinese religions in the areas of social history and cultural history have produced research achievements that are truly outstanding. Outstanding scholars conducting research on Chinese religions sprang up, such as Kenneth Chen, Arthur F. Wright, Yunhua Jan, and C. K. (Ch’ing K’un) Yang. Scholars of both Europe and North America have, with their different respective characteristics, made their own contributions.
We turn now to China. Starting in the 1920s, such representative scholars as Chen Yinke, Chen Yuan, Tang Yongtong, and Hu Shih established in China the foundations for modern scholarship of religion, thereby creating distance from the sectarian literary arena that explained and defended teachings according to tradition. On the one hand they underwent training in modern scholarship, in research methods and critical thinking, each differing greatly from traditional scholars. On the other hand, they maintained intimate connections with scholars outside the region and with the trends of international scholarship, residing at the front of world research on Chinese religions at the time.
Since 1978, Chinese religious life has been revitalized, and the effect of religion on social life has tended to be dynamic. Corresponding with this, the study of religions has come to be an increasingly active discipline in the humanities and social sciences. Speaking of this from a different angle, as China passed through over 30 years of steady development, the actual strength of the national economy is progressively increasing, and the standard of living of citizens has been greatly raised. The 30 years of China’s reformation and opening up just happened to coincide with the vigorous development of economic and cultural globalization, with globalization and local transformations marching together as companions, and the unceasing increase of globalization actually spurring on the intensification of local culture. Because of this, the vitality of Chinese religious culture and research on religions can be viewed as cultural awareness sought by officials and the citizenry alike, the expression of cultural self-respect and cultural confidence. The premise concealed here is this: religion is a kind of cultural nucleus, a thing that determines a kind of cultural character and patterns of development.
Speaking from a particular perspective, the study of Chinese religions from the perspective of European and North American Sinology is an important aspect of research and efforts to improve understanding of the type of heterogeneous culture that is Chinese culture. And local Chinese studies of Chinese religions are situated against the backdrop of cultural globalization and are an important aspect of the progressing knowledge of the distinctiveness of Chinese culture. Although these two are situated differently and their point of departure and motivation are not the same, they nonetheless both aim to shed light on the distinctiveness of Chinese culture. For this reason, study of Chinese religions is a global research field, an open, diverse, comprehensive, and multi-disciplinary research field.
Properly based on this kind of understanding, we determined to found the interna- tional, English language journal Studies in Chinese Religions, setting up an international scholarly forum in the hope that scholars all around the world who are carrying out research on Chinese religions will herein present the fruits of their research, enter into interactive exchanges, and together study and investigate Chinese religions – a topic for which we share a profound interest. Whether it is Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, folk religion, Chinese Christianity, Chinese Islam, the religions of Chinese minority groups; it is macroscopic research of Chinese religion or fact-checking research; it is research on history or current forms of practice and belief; it is philosophy, linguistics, history, art, or anthropology; or it is research carried out in the disciplines of political science, econom- ics, law, sociology, ethnology, and so forth, we immensely welcome it. We hope that through our collective efforts we can successfully establish Studies in Chinese Religions, pushing forward the study of this field.
PhD in Asian Studies (Chinese history), MA in Anthropology. I have been using Japanese for three decades, Chinese for two. Experience living in Japan, Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China. A published scholar, I have translated materials for research over the last decade. I edit, translate, proofread. My forte is food, botany, environment, history, Asian religions.
Expertise