CLD Cafe (April 2026) Translating “Tongzhi”: Language and Identity in Contemporary Chinese Gay Fiction

Details

Date:

April 22

Time:

08:00 pm - 09:30 pm

Event Category:

Current Event

Translating “Tongzhi”: Language and Identity in Contemporary Chinese Gay Fiction

Date: April 28th, 2026 (Tuesday)
Time: 8:00pm-9:30pm US Eastern | 5:00-6:30pm US Pacific
CE Points: Those who attend the Zoom session live will be eligible for 1 ATA-approved CE point.
Venue: Zoom (event link will be shared via Email to registered attendees)
Register at: https://forms.gle/xuNAoraoWQN3B9Mw9

Session Description:

This webinar examines the challenges of translating terms related to “tongzhi” (gay) fiction in contemporary Sinophone literature. Drawing on the presenter’s experience translating three book-length works, the session focuses on how terms such as “tongzhi” 同志 resist straightforward equivalence in English.

The presentation considers the defining characteristics of “gay” fiction—whether determined by content, authorship, or readership—and how specific translation choices shape the work’s reception in English-language contexts. Furthermore, it explores the contested and uneasy assimilation of gay fiction into broader “queer” or “LGBTQ+” frameworks, questioning what may be lost when the cultural specificity of gay literature is subsumed under these globalized categories. The session addresses critical questions of:

Register and historical context
Shifting semantic meanings
The translator’s role in mediating between terminological precision and narrative readability.

Presenters’ Bio:

Scott E. Myers (夢之恩) is a Chinese–English literary translator and educator based in California, where he teaches in the Chinese Translation and Interpretation program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS). His published translations include Beijing Comrades by Bei Tong (Feminist Press, 2016) and In the Face of Death We Are Equal by Mu Cao (Seagull Books, 2020). He recently completed a third book-length translation, Paper Marriage by Taiwanese author Chen Ruoxi, and is currently seeking a publishing home for this translation. Scott holds a BA in Philosophy from Hampshire College and MA degrees in Comparative Literature from New York University, in Chinese Translation from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago.

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