Introduction
I grew up in Wallonia, the southern French-speaking part of Belgium, where I attended my local state school. In 2009, I moved to Brussels to study Chinese and English for a Translation and Interpreting degree at the Institut Supérieur de Traducteurs et Interprètes (ISTI). My graduate education includes a MA in Translation, and a PhD in Literature and Translation Studies from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB, 2020). I arrived at Oxford in 2020 as a Wiener-Anspach Postdoctoral Fellow with the Oxford China Centre, before taking up my current position at Queen’s in 2021. In addition to my academic career, I am a published translator of contemporary Sinophone literature into French, with a taste for poetry and short fiction.
Teaching
I have taught a broad range of topics within literary and Chinese studies, including research methods for Chinese studies (ULB, 2018-21), Hong Kong literature, literary translation (Ca’Foscari, 2019), and seminars in translation history (Oxford, Oriental Studies, 2021). I am happy to supervise undergraduate theses in Asian Studies or History on topics such as modern Chinese Literature, gender, linguistic or translation history (late nineteenth century to the present).
Research
My area of expertise is the history of linguistics and literary translation in the late-Qing and Republican periods, with a special focus on the impact of literary translation on language reform. In particular, my first monograph project explores the intellectual and literary debates surrounding gender equality that rocked the Chinese intellectual and literary scenes after gendered pronouns were introduced into modern vernacular Chinese in the late 1910s. Still firmly rooted in Chinese linguistic history, literature, and gender studies, my next project for the Laming Fellowship will investigate how racialized and gendered linguistic hierarchies were enacted and (re)negotiated in late-Qing and Republican Chinese Literature (ca. 1895-1945) in the wake of the translation of European orientalist literature, and how those processes intersected with the Othering at play in literature portraying South and Southeast Asian peoples, languages, and scripts. Hoping to foster academic networks of solidarities for early career researchers working on gender and China, I am also a co-founder of the China Academic Network on Gender (CHANGE – https://change.hypotheses.org).
Publications
For a complete list of my publications and more information on my research, please visit https://oxford.academia.edu/CoralineJortay.