Traduzindo Culturas (Translating Cultures) — Brazilian students reading Chinese authors

The project

Translating from the original and bringing it into the classroom

Contemporary Chinese thought almost always reaches Brazil at second hand: in English, in French, or through the interpretations of Western commentators. Translating Cultures sets out to provide direct access. It translates, from the original languages, five works that are shaping today's international debates on world order, technology, cultural difference and social transformation, and brings them into the classroom and the university library.

Each work comes with a public event at the host university, a teaching guide for classroom use and a free, accessible digital edition. The project is produced by Editora Phi, a publisher based in Campinas, sponsored by CPFL Energia and approved under Brazil's Federal Culture Incentive Law.

What the project offers

  • The collection

    Five titles previously unpublished in Portuguese — three in philosophy, two in sociology — in Editora Phi's China em Foco (China in Focus) series, translated from the original languages, reviewed for terminology and philosophical accuracy, and printed on FSC-certified paper.

  • Circulation

    Copies are distributed free of charge to students and libraries at public universities with philosophy and social sciences programmes, and to public and school libraries: 2,500 copies in all, 500 per title, none of them for sale. Where the books are.

  • Teaching

    At each host university, a public lecture and a short course for students and faculty. Five teaching guides, one per title, accompany the collection for use in the classroom.

  • Open access and documentation

    All five works will also be released as free, screen-reader-accessible PDFs. The tour is being filmed for a short documentary with audio description, captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers, and subtitles in Portuguese, English and Chinese.

The 2026 tour

From September to December the collection tours public universities in five states, with a public lecture and a short course in each city. The tour ends at the International Colloquium on Oriental Philosophy at Unicamp and is captured in a short documentary released in December.

  1. 14–15 SeptemberFederal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF), Minas Gerais — inaugural lecture and short course
  2. 8–9 OctoberFederal University of Cariri (UFCA), Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará — lecture and short course
  3. 13–14 OctoberFederal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), Paraíba — lecture and short course
  4. 21 OctoberFederal University of ABC (UFABC), São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo — short course and launch of Chinese Cosmopolitanism, with its author, Shuchen Xiang
  5. 22 OctoberUniversity of Campinas (Unicamp), São Paulo — short course and launch of Chinese Cosmopolitanism, followed by a discussion
  6. 26–27 OctoberFederal University of Uberlândia (UFU), Minas Gerais — short course in two sessions and launch of Chinese Cosmopolitanism, with its author, Shuchen Xiang
  7. 29 OctoberRio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) — launch of Chinese Cosmopolitanism and short course, held at the same time
  8. 3–5 NovemberInternational Colloquium on Oriental Philosophy, Unicamp, Campinas
  9. DecemberRelease of the short documentary

Who leads the project

Portrait of Antonio Florentino Neto

Prof. Antonio Florentino Neto

General coordinator · Unicamp

Antonio Florentino Neto holds a doctorate in Philosophy from the Freie Universität Berlin. He teaches in Unicamp's doctoral programme in Social Sciences (China/Brazil concentration), where he supervises theses on Chinese philosophy. He is a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Brazil–China Studies (CIEBC – Unicamp), editor-in-chief of the journal Modernos & Contemporâneos (IFCH) and academic editor at Editora Phi. He convenes Unicamp's International Colloquium on Oriental Philosophy.

Portrait of Shuchen Xiang

Shuchen Xiang

Guest author · UFABC, Unicamp, UFU and UERJ

Shuchen Xiang holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Cambridge, master's degrees from Warwick, Pennsylvania State and Hawaii, and a doctorate summa cum laude from King's College London and the Humboldt University of Berlin. She holds the Mount Hua Professorship of Philosophy at Xidian University, China. She is the author of Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea, published in Portuguese as Cosmopolitismo chinês in the China em Foco series.

Producer and sponsors

The project is produced by Editora Phi, a Campinas-based publisher expanding its China em Foco series. It is sponsored by CPFL Energia and supported by Instituto CPFL, State Grid Brazil Power Participações and Fundação Fausto Castilho, with institutional support from the Interdisciplinary Centre for Brazil–China Studies, COCEN and Unicamp. It was approved under Brazil's Federal Culture Incentive Law, which is administered by the Ministry of Culture.

Event filming, the teasers and the short documentary are by Laboratório Cisco, also based in Campinas. The full list of people and their roles is in the credits.

Contact: editoraphi@editoraphi.com.br.