Nancy Hodes

Nancy Hodes, PhD

Faculty - Emeriti
nancy hodes
Professor Emerita of Chinese Language & Culture
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Nancy J. Hodes joined the Soka faculty as Professor of Chinese in September 2000. She came to SUA from Harvard’s Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, where she was Associate Editor of a multi-volume translation series of Mao Zedong’s pre-1949 writings. She was concurrently Adjunct Assistant Professor of Chinese at Boston College. For the first two years of its existence, she was Associate Director of the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, a think tank on peace-related issues.

Hodes spent her formative years in Beijing, China, where she attended Chinese schools and later received her BA, MA, and PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. She was Assistant Editor of the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, helped compile the Chinese-English Dictionary put out by the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute (#1) in 1978, and has published numerous translations of Chinese poetry, short stories, and essays. She taught English for two years at the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, and for two years at the Central University in Caracas, Venezuela. Throughout her adult life, she has also been active in various international movements for peace and justice and has worked as an interpreter in Chinese, English, and Spanish in various international settings.

Hodes and her husband, Dr. Zhenxi Wang, reside in Lake Forest.

  • PhD, Harvard University
  • MA, Harvard University
  • BA, Harvard University
  • Introduction to Peace Studies
  • Modes of Inquiry
  • Core: Enduring Questions
  • First-year Chinese I
  • First-year Chinese II
  • Second-year Chinese I
  • Second-year Chinese II
  • Intermediate Review
  • Third-year Chinese I
  • Learning Cluster: The Chinese Immigrant Community in Southern California
  • Late Imperial and modern Chinese literature and intellectual history
  • Literary translation--theory and practice
  • The Chinese community in the United States
  • Mao's Road to Power. Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949, ed. Stuart R. Schram, vols I-VII (Associate Ed except vol I) M.E. Sharpe, 1992-2005
  • Translation of four poems in World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time, ed. Katharine Washburn, John Major, Clifton Fadiman, W.W. Norton, 1998
  • "The Joys of Collaboration in Translating Chinese Poetry," China Exchange News 21, 3 & 4, 1993
  • Translation of "Grass Rings," in Festival of Flowers: Essays by Contemporary Chinese Women, ed. Zhu Hong, Yilin Publishing House 1995
  • Translation of 29 poems in Women Writers of Traditional China: an Anthology of Poetry and Criticism, ed. Kang-i Sun Chang and Haun Saussy, Stanford University Press, 1999
  • Translation of "Gone Astray" a poem by Bei Dao, Christian Science Monitor, May 18, 1983
  • Translation of chapters 5, 6, 7 of Critical Reflections on my Pursuit of Learning, by Hsiao Kung-ch'uan, Chinese Studies in History XII, 2, 3, and 4, 1978-79
  • Translation of "Leading the Way," by Chu Min-shen, in Yenan Seeds and Other Stories, Beijing Foreign Languages Press 1976
  • A Chinese-English Dictionary, comp. Chinese-English Dictionary Editorial Committee, Beijing Foreign Languages Inst. (#1) Ed. Comm. member) Beijing Shangwu yinshu guan, 1978
  • 2000-present, Professor, SUA
  • 1991-2000, Associate Editor, Mao Project Harvard University Fairbank Center for East Asian Research
  • 1993-1995, Associate Director, Boston Research Center for the 21st Century
  • 1991-1994, Adj. Assistant Professor, Boston College
  • 1987-1989, Assistant Editor, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies