Dr. Sharkey’s PhD thesis, entitled “Rewriting Mao: On the Ideologized Representation of Mao Zedong in Institutional Translations of Volume V of The Selected Works of Mao Zedong,” looks at how ideology, as an expression of the power of institutions and the interests they serve, impacts representations of Mao in translation.

The thesis compares three translations of Volume V of The Selected Works of Mao Zedong carried out by the Chinese Foreign Languages Press, the CIA-funded Joint Publication Research Service, and the American Ivy-league college Brown University. The translations of Mao produced by these institutions are viewed as instances of knowledge creation, extending and reinforcing particular ways of looking at Mao and his work in the English-speaking world.

Some of Dr. Sharkey’s perspectives on the translation of Mao into English are presented in the article “Translation and the Making of History: The Objectification of Mao Zedong,” recently published in World Literature Studies.