Dr. Chen Hailian
Translations and Beyond: John Fryer and his Transnational Networks for Initiating China’s Mining Education
John Fryer (1839–1928) was the most productive translator in China’s second wave of Western Learning. As being widely studied in existing scholarship, Fryer contributed extensively to the early translations of scientific and technical textbooks, in particular, to the formation and standardization of early terminologies. However, relatively little attention has been paid to Fryer’s contributions to, and linkage with the late Qing technical practices and education.
As I have pointed out in a recent article, John Fryer laid the cornerstone for translating and disseminating Western knowledge on mining in the late Qing (see Hailian Chen, “Creating Intellectual Space for West-East and East-East Knowledge Transfer: Global Mining Literacy and the Evolution of Textbooks on Mining in Late Qing China, 1860–1911,” in Accessing Technical Education in Modern Japan, edited by Erich Pauer and Regine Mathias, Folkstone: Renaissance Books, forthcoming in 2022).
This project continues with my above-mentioned case study of John Fryer with regard to global mining literacy and addresses the connectedness between Fryer and the initiation of China’s mining education. It draws on the corresponding letters and personal papers of John Fryer and the valuable documents kept in Sheng Xuanhuai’s archival series. Fryer’s transnational/transcultural network—with missionaries, Chinese scholars and official-industrialists, Western publishers, traders, industries, and universities—enabled him to enlarge a seemingly pure scholarly engagement in translation into a wider political economic framework. This project aims to provide a fine example that demonstrates how networks empowered the knowledge transferring process, such as from translated book-knowledge, to mining practices, and to the necessity of discussing and initiating mining education in China.
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Editor (6. Oktober 2021). Dr. Chen Hailian. Chinawissen vernetzt / Sinologia in rete / Savoirs sur la Chine en réseau. Abgerufen am 15. Juni 2025 von https://sinonet.hypotheses.org/189