Translation in the Qing Poetic Imaginary | Lecture by Nathan Vedal

Event details Date: Thursday, October 15, 2026 Time: 4:00 PM Location: 370 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley Type: Lecture / Workshop Audience: Faculty,Public,Staff,Students About this event This talk, introducing a forthcoming monograph ( Translation, Emulation, and Manchu Literary Culture ), will consider the institution of a Manchu translation program in the elite Hanlin Academy. A subset of literati at the Hanlin Academy, a training ground for officials and court scholars who passed the civil service exam at the highest level, underwent a three-year program of Manchu study culminating in a final translation exam. Knowledge of Manchu gained at the Hanlin Academy, while primarily intended for bureaucratic purposes and court scholarship, is also evident in the deployment of multilingual literary effects in Chinese poetic compositions. Within Qing literary-intellectual culture, the juxtaposition of Chinese and Manchu yielded a productive venue for literary creation and self-fashioning. Official event details: https://events.berkeley.edu/live/events/328209-translation-in-the-qing-poetic-imaginary-lecture