Routledge Translation as the Gaze: Conceptualizing the Sino-Western Encounter, 1839-1949 (China Perspectives)

This book centers on how translation is key to understanding the encounter between China and the West from 1839 to 1949. It explores the ambivalence, anxiety, and narcissism that China manifested when facing the foreign other and conceptualizes this intercultural interaction as a gaze. Drawing on the theories of Sartre, Lacan, and Foucault, the book presents "translation as the gaze" as an analytical framework through which the interplay of knowledge, power, and identity can be examined anew. In the interlocking of gazes between the self and the other, translation emerges not as a neutral medium but as a dynamic, multilayered structure that simultaneously reveals and conceals, mediates, and transforms. By foregrounding the textual doubleness and epistemological fluidity of translation, the book illustrates how modern China negotiated its position in a global order of seeing and being seen. This framework deepens our understanding of China’s modernity and dialogic formation through translation and offers a critical perspective for studying transcultural encounters beyond the Sino-Western context. It illuminates the broader history of exchanges between civilizations. The book will appeal to scholars and students of translation studies, Asian studies, and comparative literature.