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 in both. Translations I offer for general and academic texts, from English to German and Chinese to German.
Experience
Since 2025
Independent Editor and Translator, registered in the searchable index of editors managed by the VFLL (Verband Freier Lektorinnen und Lektoren e. V.): https://www.lektoren.de/profil/teresa-johnson
2017-2023
Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
ADVANCED TRAINING
January 2026
Certificate “Freies Lektorat III” (Independent Editing III) – Akademie der Deutschen Medien
December 2025
Certificate “Freies Lektorat I” (Independent Editing I) – Akademie der Deutschen Medien.
“Sach- und Fachtexte lektorieren” (Editing nonfiction and specialist texts) – VFLL
November 2021
“Equitable Assessment and Student Writing” – The Writing Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
April/Mai 2021
“Plain Language Certificate” – University of Wisconsin-Madison
August 2020
“Writing Across the Curriculum: Communication-B Training” – University of Wisconsin-Madison
Education
Ph.D. in Chinese Literature & Culture (with a minor in Japanese Literature), University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2024.
Digital Humanities Certificate, University of California-Berkeley, 2019.
M.A. in Sinology, Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany, 2015.
B.A. in Sinology (2014) and American Studies (2016), Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany.
Ph.D.
M.A.
Dig.Hum.
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.