Rewriting the Dao : A look at introductions of English versions of the Laozi

American Daoism is a unique development of the Daoist tradition that actually tends to separate itself from that tradition. The central text of American Daoism is the Laozi, which has been translated into English by trained scholars and other persons who may not have had formal training in approaching the text. One aspect of American Daoism is the production of new versions of the Laozi by authors who do not necessarily understand the Chinese language. In this paper, I look at the introductions of these pseudo-translations to gain insight to the authors’ motivation and thoughts for their works. Through these authors’ justifications for rewriting the Laozi and the process they undertake to do so is made clear and a new, Chinese-distant Laozi aligned with Western culture and religion is found as well.