Zhongzhi Chen:
My main contribution was the finding, punctuating, and translating of an authoritative version of the Chinese text. In doing this, I consulted both the Brandeis Library search engine, which yielded some second-hand scholarly articles that aided my group in providing the background to and analyzing the text, and also Professor Pu Wang from the Brandeis East Asian Studies department, who very kindly provided a highly authoritative and citable version of the text by asking his friend Professor Li Mengyun from the School of Chinese Classics of the Renmin University of China to find and scan pages from an old Qing dynasty archival collection of classical texts (《四库全书》). After obtaining the text, I punctuated it, since classical Chinese did not have punctuation, and translated it into English in consultation with my father, who provided me with certain information regarding the meaning of certain Chinese characters that I did not recognize, for the text was printed in pre-simplified Chinese. Apart from this, I also researched and provided certain background information surrounding the text, such as the basic biography of the author (of which there exists no English version), for the use of our group in composing the necessary background information to the text.
Laurel Dobkin:
Overall, I analyzed the translation of the fairy tale for its themes and style and worked on the close reading of the story. At the start of our project, we all worked together to choose a story to analyze and were specifically interested in examining different iterations of Little Red Riding Hood across cultures. I helped in looking for different versions of this story to choose the one we ultimately did, and in discussing our visions and specific ideas for this project. Once we had our translated story, I did a close reading of the fairy tale and worked on analyzing its content. I found it to be really interesting to think about how this story worked similarly to many others we’ve read in class but also has its own unique elements. I also helped put together the website used to portray this information.
Zach Katz:
My contribution to this project was writing the section comparing “The Tale of the Tiger Grandmother” to “Little Red-cap.” Before we started working on it, I knew that I was really interested in how similar stories across different cultures related to each other. When we were still brainstorming what our project would be, we originally leaned very strongly in that direction, planning to find a Chinese fairy tale and compare it with two or more cultural analogues. Eventually we realized that time would not allow us to complete this idea, so we cut that aspect of the project down to just one, comparing the Chinese story to that recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Although this was the part of the project I was the most excited about, I made the suggestion to downsize it because my original idea just wasn’t feasible. Once we decided on the shape our project took, it was relatively easy to compare and contrast the two stories. While they have many similarities, the lessons they are meant to teach are radically different, which I find very interesting.
Amelia Mahony:
For this project, I mainly contributed by writing the preface and the notes on the text. Since we wanted to focus on Chinese stories, I spent some time reading Chinese fairytales before we decided on the “Tiger Grandmother” legend. During the project, I focused on researching and writing about our author Huang Zhijuan. This involved reading and translating Chinese scholarly journals on his life and works, as well as gathering information about the Qing dynasty in China, which was where he lived. Aside from the writing the preface, I worked on the notes on the text and its original publication. This involved looking for credible sources that detailed when this story was written and talking about our process for creating this reprint. I also contributed to making the website alongside my team members.
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