West wind : eing 'modern' and 'Chinese' through translation

Abstract

This thesis examines how Xifeng (西风 West Wind, 1936-1949) magazine participated in and contributed to the making of a modern Chinese identity through translating the West and promoting a modus vivendi for being “modern Chinese” among its readers in the 1930s and 1940s. Xifeng was a widely-circulated magazine featuring translated articles from popular Western periodicals, which also successfully promoted indigenous creative writings by learning from magazine articles in the West. This thesis rediscovers Xifeng magazine as an important journal belonging to the Analects school (论语派) of writers in modern Chinese literature and culture. By situating the translation and literary practices of Xifeng in the modern Chinese context, this thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach by engaging insights from both translation studies and modern Chinese literary and cultural studies to investigate the productive agency translation played in the formation of modern Chinese identity. The thesis discusses what means to be modern Chinese through three key issues, namely, modern Chinese language, modern Chinese national selfhood, and modern Chinese woman, and argues that the magazine has contributed to the shaping of a modern Chinese identity with a distinctive modern ethos that favours a moderate and balanced attitude towards the agonies of Chinese modernity.