On April 17, 2026, Professor Zhu Yifan for Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) gave a lecture titled “Beyond the Illusion of Equivalence: A Conceptual Translation History of ‘Xin’ and ‘Fidelity’” at the School of Foreign Studies (SFS), Nankai University in Tianjin. The lecture was organized by the Center for International Communication of Chinese Culture at SFS.
Before the lecture, Professor Hu Cui’e, Director of the Center for International Communication of Chinese Culture at SFS as well as Doctoral Supervisor, extended a warm welcome and sincere gratitude to Professor Zhu Yifan for visiting Nankai. During the lecture, Professor Zhu began with two allusions: Lao Tzu’s saying “Trustworthy words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not trustworthy” and Gilles Ménage’s “ Unfaithful Beauty (Belles infidèles)”. She pointed out that although both “Xin” and “fidelity” occupy a core position in translation studies, their connotations are fundamentally different. The primary question to clarify is: how does this superficial equivalence mask the fundamental premise conflicts rooted in different Chinese and Western philosophical and cultural traditions? Based on this, Professor Zhu reviewed the semantic evolution history of “Xin” and “fidelity” in their respective translation practice systems through continuous negotiation and reinterpretation. She analyzed how contextualized methods reveal the above conflicts and their evolution trajectory, questioned the universality of “fidelity”, and revealed the theoretical blind spots caused by conceptual dislocations in Chinese-Western academic dialogue. At the end of the lecture, Professor Zhu quoted Antoine Berman’s famous saying, “The ethical act of translation consists in receiving the Other as the Other”, as a summary of the entire lecture, and conducted in-depth discussions and exchanges with the attending faculty and students. Professor Zhu gave wonderful responses to questions one by one. Faculty and students stated that they benefited greatly and still had more to learn. The lecture concluded successfully amid warm applause.
