2024 AMTD Scholar: Weiao Xing (he/him)

My research respectfully involves and engages with Indigenous communities. Focusing on Indigenous encounters with English and French settlers, it examines narratives about translingual exchanges and linguistic knowledge in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Recently, cultural historians have underlined the communicative facet of encounters, and literary scholars have investigated Indigenous roles in the origin of Canadian and American literature. Offering cultural and literary insights, my research aims to connect the practical and intellectual facets of translingual encounters. It argues that as regards narratives written by Indigenous and European authors, motivations for these texts and their reception are doorways to both groups’ involvement in the changing worldviews promoted by encounters. Moreover, linguistic knowledge acquired in encounters challenged and diversified the European perception of human languages and the non-European world. My research foregrounds Indigenous voices that have long been silenced, by drawing on historical anthologies of Indigenous literacies and engaging with knowledge keepers nowadays.

As an emerging global leader in historical and literary research, I aspire to disturb stereotypical ideas about Indigenous disappearance in early modern encounters, transforming humanities-based knowledge about the Americas’ colonial legacy for present-day and future reconciliation in Canada and internationally. My project aligns with the University of Waterloo’s agenda to strengthen diverse communities and develop talent for a complex future. It also offers valuable opportunities for international collaboration, community engagement, and interdisciplinary approaches in research and teaching. My supervisors Katherine Acheson and Susan Roy will uniquely support my research due to their expertise in literature and history, and my research will benefit from and contribute to conversations across disciplines, particularly with Indigenous scholars. 

As a cultural and literary historian working on Indigenous-European encounters, I endeavour to respectfully engage with Indigenous scholars and knowledge holders. I plan to develop my first book project, which stems from my thesis and incorporates approaches from cultural history, the history of books, and Indigenous studies. I aim to disseminate my research through both scholarly works and public history, hoping to inspire students through teaching and tutorials. Additionally, I seek to engage with diverse sectors in higher education, academic publishing, museums, and libraries to explore various ways to communicate my research and enhance my career potential. 

I was a Cambridge Trust scholar during my PhD in History from 2018 to 2022 when I submitted my thesis. In 2023, I took up my short-term visiting fellowships in the UK and the US at the Eccles Centre of the British Library, the Huntington Library, and the Massachusetts Historical Society. From January 2024 to January 2025, I am a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Modern History, University of Tübingen in Germany, funded by the Global Encounters Platform. 

Spotlighting encounters between Indigenous peoples and settlers from England and France, my book project foregrounds the roles, perceptions, and knowledge of languages from the late sixteenth century to the early eighteenth century. It conceptualises North American contact zones as a ‘languagescape’ that pluralised language learning, oral and written translation, and manuscript and print culture. In its four main chapters, my book scrutinises encounters in colonial Virginia, Acadia and Québec, New England, as well as the Huron-Wendat nation and French Louisiana. These chapters argue for diverse extents of Indigenous literacy and explore the intricate interplay between translation and knowledge production. On a global scale, the book connects transatlantic encounters with the experiences of missionaries in East Asia and colonisation in Ireland, Malaya, and the Caribbean. Furthermore, I am working on shorter pieces – articles and book chapters – about the history of books, cultural and literary history, and historical sociolinguistics, either individually or as part of larger collaborative projects. 

At the University of Waterloo, I will have the opportunity to carry on my interdisciplinary research by learning from my supervisors and engaging with the vibrant research community. In addition, the university’s convenient location near Indigenous communities, libraries, and archives in Ontario and Québec, as well as its proximity to the Eastern seaboard of the US and Europe, will allow me to access abundant resources and international scholarship. 

I look forward to communicating with peer postdoctoral researchers from various fields, hoping to make our research more accessible to non-specialists and to pursue a more meaningful, balanced, and exhilarating life. 

I enjoy reading and writing poems and essays. Inspired by the history of art, I have a keen interest in photography while travelling around the world. In addition, I am an amateur pianist and dancer. 

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