Jenny He

About

Jenny is a 3rd year postgraduate researcher, supervised by Dr Caroline Summers, Dr Siddharth Peter de Souza, and Dr Sijing Lu.

Jenny occasionally writes for a number of literary publications including Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry London, Tears in the Fence, Hopscotch Translation, and Asian Review of Books. She is also a trustee for Charity Translators.

Research

Jenny's doctoral research examines how digital platforms reshape the circulation, representation and cultural meaning of English literature in contemporary China. Focusing on English novels in Chinese translation across Taobao and Douyin, the thesis investigates how algorithms, commercial actors and state-regulated cultural infrastructures select, classify, recommend, recombine and visually represent literary works. Bringing translation studies into dialogue with platform studies, literary theory and theories of patronage, it develops the concept of platform poetics to examine how platforms construct an “idea of the text” through algorithmic rewriting, algorithmic anthologisation and digital patronage. The thesis argues that repeated algorithmic refraction and recombination can transform historically specific literary works into portable cultural signs, reshaping literary fame, genre, gender and literary history within platform environments. It further examines how these platform-mediated representations intersect with contemporary state discourse around marriage, family and fertility, showing how literary culture becomes implicated in the reproduction of socially valued models of gender, romance and family life.

Research Interests

• Translation theories,

• platform studies,

• reception,

• algorithmic governance,

• social media & digital culture,

• popular culture,

• propaganda.

Conference Papers

'Algorithmic Rewriting, Digital Patronage and the manipulation of literary fame: English literary heroines on Chinese social media platforms.' IATIS, December 2025, Sultan Qaboos University

'Algorithms, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame', October 2025, New Literacies in Translation, University of Tarragona

'Canon Fodder: Platforms, Patronage, and Power', September 2025, Trextuality2, University of Galway.

'Heroine Chic: English novels as marriage and fertility propaganda', July 2025, EST, University of Leeds

'Red Translation and the Little Read Book' December 2024, IPCITI, University of Manchester

'Algorithms, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame',November 2024, ICIST, Kaunas University of Technology

'All the Single Ladies', May 2024, SMLC Symposium, University of Warwick

'Red Translation in contemporary China: #socialism - what’s trending?', March 2024, I International Conference on PhD Research about Translation, Madrid Complutense University

Publications

Guest editor

'Digital Patronage and the Politics of Translation in an Algorithmic Culture' The Journal of Specialised Translation, JoSTrans 49 (January 2028)

Book Chapters

He, J. (forthcoming) ‘Canon fodder: Platforms, patronage, and power’, in Tanasescu, R. (ed.) Translation, materiality and circulation. Routledge.

Literary Reviews

Interview with Fiona Sze-Lorrain, May 2024, Modern Poetry in Translation

'Narrative Subjects', Review: 'La Mysterique' by Jennifer Lee Tsai, March 2024, Tears in the Fence

'In the margin', Review: 'The Lost Book of Barkynge' by Ruth Wiggins, March 2024, Tears in the Fence

'Linguistic Dissidence': On Yang Lian's political transgressions of language, Review: 'A Tower Built Downwards' trans. Brian Holton, 2023, Modern Poetry in Translation

Review: 'Bearing Word' by Liu Liangcheng, trans. Jeremy Tiang, 2023, Asian Review of Books

'Life Lessons': a review of four new poetry pamphlets, 2023, Poetry London

Scholarships and Awards

IDTS Mobility Scholarship, Tampere University, Finland

Centre for Arts Doctoral Research Excellence CADRE Scholarship

Academic roles

IPCITI 2025 Organising Comittee

SMLC PGR Symposium 2024 Organising Committee

Non-academic roles

Member of the Board of Trustees for Charity Translators.

Qualifications

MA Translation, London Metropolitan University

BA Hons English and Drama, University of Bristol

Memberships

ARN - Australian Reception Network