About me
——
Introducing…
With a Ph.D. in Chinese Literature & Culture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison I offer you expert knowledge around Chinese culture, literature, and language. Thanks to a Digital Humanities Certificate from the University of California-Berkeley I am also no stranger to digitization and programming. Over the course of the past fifteen years, I have gained extensive experience with the writing of academic texts, both as a student and as a teacher.
I am well versed in mentoring the writing process for academic papers and theses in German and in English in the humanities, especially in my field of expertise Chinese studies. I am also excited about American Studies and Digital Humanities. I love working with all texts relating to China in varying genres. Translations I offer for general and academic texts, from English to German and Chinese to German.
German
Native speaker
English
Full proficiency
Chinese
Fluent
VFLL-Profile
My entry in the VFLL directory of freelance editors: https://lektoren.de/profil/teresa-johnson
My Profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tg-johnson/
My Business Profile:
https://de.linkedin.com/company/lektorat-johnson
Contact
My E-mail address for direct contact: info@lektorat-johnson.de
Experience
Independent Editor and Translator
Self-employed since 2025
Lecturer for Chinese Language, Literature and Culture
Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2017-2023
Education
Freie Lektorin ADM (certified independent editor)
Certificate program, Akademie der Deutschen Medien (Academy of German Media), 2026.
Ph.D.
Doctorate in Chinese Literature with a minor in Japanese Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Digital Humanities Certificate
Certificate program, University of California-Berkeley.
M.A.
Master’s degree in Sinology, Goethe University Frankfurt.
B.A.
Double bachelor’s degree in Sinology and American Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt.
Further Training
Independent Editing I, II, and III
Certificate „Freies Lektorat“ (Independent Editing) at the Akademie der Deutschen Medien (Academy of German Media), December 2025 through March 2026.
Editing nonfiction and specialist texts
Advanced training offered by the Verbands Freier Lektorinnen und Lektoren (VFLL), December 2025.
Plain Language Certificate
Certificate program for clear and accessible language, University of Wisconsin-Madison, April/May 2021.
Writing Across the Curriculum
Advanced training for the supervision and assessment of student writing, University of Wisconsin-Madison, August 2020.
My Texts
Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment in Modern China
Forthcoming (2026). Xu Jilin. Aufklärung und Anti-Aufklärung im China der Gegenwart: Chinesische Ansichten zum Experiment Moderne. Translated from Chinese into German by Teresa Johnson. Campus Verlag.
Digitizing the Strange
2024. Teresa Johnson. “Digitizing the Strange: Reading Zibuyu with Topic Modeling and QGIS.” Dissertation (Chinese Literature & Culture). University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Struggles for Existence in El Modena
2016. Teresa Johnson. “Struggles for Existence in El Modena: A Controversy over the Importance of Progress and Fixation in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Pacific Edge.” Bachelor’s Thesis (American Studies). Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.
Utopia of the Wolves
2015. Teresa Johnson. “Utopia of the Wolves: Wolf Identities and Environmental Crisis in Jiang Rong’s Novel Wolf Totem.” Master’s Thesis (Sinology). Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.
The Transformation of the "Peach Blossom Spring"
2014. Teresa Johnson. “The Transformation of the ‘Peach Blossom Spring’: A Comparison of Utopian Concepts in Tao Yuanming’s ‘Peach Blossom Spring’ and Lai Shengchuan’s Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land.” Bachelor’s Thesis (Sinology), Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.