Missionary Enchantment in South Asia, 16th-18th Centuries

Catholic Histories and Fictions
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-485-6775-1
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 4, 366 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 816 g

Reihe: Entanglements, Interactions, and Economies in the Early Modern World

Max Weber’s classical notion of enchantment serves in this book to highlight the clash and rewiring of ethical and cosmological codes in European and Indian early modern cultural encounters from the 16th century onward. Since Portuguese imperialism was unable to justify itself without invoking otherworldly intervention, Catholic missionaries provided the vocabulary and narrative of global salvation. Each chapter in this volume explores a range of enchantment techniques used by missionaries, encompassing historical prose, poetry, images, and translations, woven through with emotions and wrapped in illocutionary force. Catholic missionaries in India wrote from and about the soft belly of tropical colonialism with certainty about the triumph of Christianity. Understanding the subterranean bond between history and fiction is at the heart of this book.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Zupanov, Ines G

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein Missionswissenschaft, Missionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Enchantment Never Ends

Part I: Hagiographies

1. Holy Zeal and Fervor: Jesuit Enchanted Geography in Asia

2. Holy Fear and Love: Jesuit Affective Economy

3. Accidental Global Historians: Jesuits and Discalced Carmelites

Part II: Martyrdom

4 “The History of the Future:” Missionary Enchantment of Self

5. From Pilot to Martyr: The French Connection in Southeast Asia

Part III: Knowledge

6. Learning about Buddhism: Correspondence between China and India

7. Neither White nor Black: Goan Brahman Oratorians in Sri Lanka

8. Science and Demonology: French Jesuits in South India

Afterthought

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Zupanov, Ines G
Ines G. Zupanov is a historian at CNRS, Paris. She is a social/cultural historian of Catholic missions in South Asia and the Portuguese empire. Author of three monographs and a dozen edited volumes, she has contributed many articles and chapters to scholarly books and journals in different languages