Research Fields: Contemporary Chinese/Taiwanese/Sinophone and Latin American Literature, Translation Studies, Comparative/World Literature, Media and Sound Studies

Education: 

• Doctor of Philosophy, University of California at Santa Barbara, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies (2024)

• Master of Arts, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation, Foreign and Applied Linguistics (2017)

• Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies, Oberlin College, Department of East Asian Studies (2014)

Ursula approaches literary (self-)translation and transmediation as tools for advancing social justice. By translating and re-mediating our own stories, we heal historical wounds, embrace radical empathy, and engage in reparative dialogues. As a translator and scholar of contemporary Sinophone literature, particularly queer and speculative émigré fiction, Ursula adopts a reparative approach to literary translation, whereby author, translator, and reader jointly engage in collective world-making. 

Ursula’s dissertation and forthcoming book project, Self-Translation as Method: Modern Sinophone Self-Translators and their Transmediated Afterlives, envisions self-translation and transmediation as trauma reconciliation technologies that (re-)inscribe national trauma narratives under individual affective structures, and vice-versa. By adapting their own oral, visual, and written creations across diverse languages, cultures, and media, Sinophone self-translators democratize language and culture from the periphery. 

Outside the classroom, Ursula engages in creative writing highlighting the voices of LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, imprisoned, immigrant, and otherwise disenfranchised characters. Ursula is collating a database of transcribed interviews with living writers who translate and adapt their own work into other languages and media. Please contact her to share your stories!

Selected Publications:

Friedman, Ursula and Kenneth (Hsien-yung) Pai. “Behind the Scenes with the White Peony: An Interview with Kenneth Pai Hsien-yung (Interviewed and Translated by Ursula Friedman).” MCLC (Modern Chinese Literature and Culture) Resource Center. 29 January 2025. 

Friedman, Ursula Deser. “Transwriting as Method: Eileen Chang’s ‘She Said Smiling’ (Xiangjian huan).” Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature. Duke University Press, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2025 (forthcoming). 

Friedman, Ursula Deser and Ha Jin. “At Home on the Road: A Conversation between Ha Jin and Ursula Deser Friedman.” In The Journal of Literary Multilingualism (2024): 1-10. 

Friedman, Ursula Deser. “From Traduttore, Traditore to Traduttore, Creatore: Creative Subversion in the Self-Translations of Ha Jin and Pai Hsien-yung.” In Humor and Self-Translation [Topics in Humor Research 11]. Margherita Dore, ed. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2022, 63-86. 

Friedman, Ursula Deser. “Creative Subversion in Hao Jingfang’s Shengsi Yu (生死域)/Limbo.” Translation Review, vol. 110, no. 1, 2021, 48-62.

Friedman, Ursula Deser. “浅谈社科文献中‘传播’一词的英译—以英语母语人士的视角” (Strategies for Translating the Term Chuanbo in Chinese Social Sciences Texts from the Perspective of an English Native Speaker). International Communications (对外传播), no. 9 (2019): 78-84. 

Bin Yao (姚斌) and Ursula Deser Friedman. “中文社科文献外译的挑战、对策与建议：以《20世纪中国古代文化经典在域外的传播与影响研究》为例” (Challenges, Solutions, and Suggestions for Translating Chinese Social Science Texts: A Case Study of The Influence of Ancient Chinese Cultural Classics Abroad in the Twentieth Century). Chinese Translators Journal (中国翻译) vol. 29 no. 2, pp. 149-156. 

Bin Yao (姚斌) and Ursula Deser Friedman. “会议发言中‘前言’和‘结语’的汉英口译策略” (Strategies for Translating Opening and Closing Remarks in Conference Speeches). Horizon (视野), August 2020: 65-68.

Jianing Zeng (曾佳宁) and Ursula Deser Friedman. 浅谈茶“韵”一字多译 (Translations of Yun in Chinese Tea Culture). 英语学习 (English Language Learning), ISSN: 1002-5553, November 2019, pp. 43-44. 

Friedman, Ursula Deser. “The Secret Lives of Women: Can Xue’s Love in the New Millennium, translation from Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen.” Reading in Translation: Translations Reviewed by Translators. 2 April 2019.