The Voice of the Fans in the Digital Era:

Fan Translation and Film Criticism in China

Please note that these talks will be held online this year and you will need to register your interest through this form by Sunday 15th November.

You will receive further details about accessing the seminar via Teams on the day of Dr Guo's talk.

Film criticism in China has been changing due to a growing fan community and their active participation in online film reviewing. While social media has democratized who can write reviews, there remain distinct hierarchies of professional and amateur reviewers. Drawing upon Henry Jenkins’ concept of “knowledge community” (2006) and recent studies on amateur translation by scholars such as Luis Pérez-González (2014) and Tessa Dwyer (2018), this talk explores how translation has been used by Chinese film fans to challenge the existing film reviewing system in China and participate in the debate over the nature of film criticism in the digital age. Through a case study of the fan translation and dissemination of an English review of the recent Chinese blockbuster The Wandering Earth (2019), it argues that translation, as an alternative form of self-expression, constitutes both an important cinematic experience for fans and an attempt by grassroots consumers to disrupt existing knowledge systems and power structures.

Dr. Ting Guo is Senior Lecturer in Translation and Chinese Studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Exeter (UK). Her research interests include translation and history, Chinese cinema, modernity and sexuality. She publishes widely in journals such as Translation Studies and Literature Compass, and she is the author of Surviving Violent Conflict: Chinese Interpreters in the Second-Sino Japanese War (1931-45) (2016). Her research focuses on the pivotal role of translator in the reproduction and dissemination of knowledge as well as in cultural and social changes. Her ongoing AHRC funded project “Translating for change: Anglophone queer cinema and Chinese LGBT+ movement” explores new ways to visualize subtitling practices by Chinese queer fans and how Anglophone queer culture has been translated into Chinese in films.