Ines G. Zupanov | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research (original) (raw)

Papers by Ines G. Zupanov

Research paper thumbnail of Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud

Le cosmopolitisme est-il un enfant de la modernité occidentale ou peut-on le trouver en d’autres ... more Le cosmopolitisme est-il un enfant de la modernité occidentale ou peut-on le trouver en d’autres temps et d’autres lieux ? Cet ouvrage entend apporter une réponse à cette question aujourd’hui vivement débattue en retraçant ses contours en tant que pratique et Weltanschauung dans une région du monde - l’Asie du Sud - pôle majeur de l’espace de circulation de l’Asie musulmane et nœud des flux humains, matériels et immatériels reliant l’Occident à l’Orient au cours des XVIe-XVIIIe siècles. Terre d’accueil pour de nombreuses élites en quête de patronage, port d’ancrage pour d’autres ou encore simple étape au sein de parcours transocéaniques guidés par l’appétit de richesses ou de savoirs, l’Asie du Sud de la première modernité est un terreau particulièrement fertile pour la construction d’identités et de visions cosmopolites, tant au niveau individuel qu’à celui de la polis. Aussi hétérogène comme idée que comme habitus, le cosmopolitisme est abordé ici sous un angle résolument pluriel favorisant la multiplication des approches (acteurs, langues, lieux, activités à « vocation » cosmopolite) et le croisement de ses différentes manifestations - moghole, marathe, européennes, etc. - afin d’en faire mieux ressortir les constantes, variantes, limites et interactions. Dans cette optique, les études réunies au fil de ce numéro illustrent bel et bien ce que le « citoyen du monde » des Lumières doit aux « Indes orientales »

Research paper thumbnail of Divins remèdes

L’abondance des sources qu’offre l’Asie du Sud - à la fois textuelles, historiques et ethnographi... more L’abondance des sources qu’offre l’Asie du Sud - à la fois textuelles, historiques et ethnographiques - au croisement et à l’interaction du médical et du religieux, rend difficile l’analyse que ce volume se propose d’accomplir. En fait, la porosité des frontières entre les domaines nous oblige à questionner les outils mêmes de notre enquête. Si l’objectif est de focaliser l’attention sur les recoupements entre soins et cultes, remèdes et rituels, thérapeutes et officiants, le risque encouru est celui de dissoudre et de confondre les deux domaines, en traitant tout acte thérapeutique de religieux, et tout acte religieux de thérapeutique. Ce gommage ferait disparaître la raison d’être de ce volume, qui consiste à étudier les articulations, les jointures, et parfois les frictions, entre le médical et le religieux. Toutefois, une définition des termes « médecine » et « religion » n’entre pas dans le propos de cet ouvrage. La notion abstraite de « religion » est une construction conceptuelle récente, liée à l’émergence des États modernes et à l’expansion européenne, et n’a pas d’équivalent dans la plupart des langues indiennes, de même que le terme « médecine » rend difficilement compte de l’hétérogénéité des savoirs et des pratiques thérapeutiques que l’on rencontre dans le monde indien. Les contributions ici réunies, sans donner une définition univoque des champs du religieux et du médical, accordent une importance majeure aux concepts et aux terminologies locales montrant ainsi la pluralité des formes à travers lesquelles les représentations cosmologiques, rituelles et divines sont reliées aux théories et aux pratiques de santé

Research paper thumbnail of Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat, Jean-Pierre Mahé & Jean Leclant (éd.), L 'œuvre scientifique des missionnaire en Asie. Journée d'études organisée par l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres et la Société asiatique (Palais de l'Institut de France, 9 janvier 2009), 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Profit and Souls in Global Missions (16th–18th Centuries)

Trade and Finance in Global Missions (16th-18th Centuries), 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Trade and Finance in Global Missions (16th-18th Centuries)

Research paper thumbnail of Intercultural Encounter and the Jesuit Mission in South Asia (16th–18th Centuries), written by Anand Amaladass et Ines G. Županov (eds.)

Social Sciences and Missions, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Cultural Mobility

Cultural Mobility is a blueprint and a model for understanding the patterns of meaning that human... more Cultural Mobility is a blueprint and a model for understanding the patterns of meaning that human societies create. Drawn from a wide range of disciplines, the essays collected here under the distinguished editorial guidance of Stephen Greenblatt share the conviction that cultures, even traditional cultures, are rarely stable or fixed. Radical mobility is not a phenomenon of the twenty-first century alone, but is a key constituent element of human life in virtually all periods. Yet academic accounts of culture tend to operate on exactly the opposite assumption and to celebrate what they imagine to be rooted or whole or undamaged. To grasp the shaping power of colonization, exile, emigration, wandering, contamination, and unexpected, random events, along with the fierce compulsions of greed, longing, and restlessness, cultural analysis needs to operate with a new set of principles. An international group of authors spells out these principles and puts them into practice.

Research paper thumbnail of “A História do Futuro”

Cultura, 2007

Profecias jesuítas móveis de Nápoles para a Índia e para o Brasil (século XVII) * Inês Zupanov **... more Profecias jesuítas móveis de Nápoles para a Índia e para o Brasil (século XVII) * Inês Zupanov ** Pouco depois de chegar a Goa, nos últimos dias de 1635, Marcello Francesco Mastrilli, um jesuíta de Nápoles, contou pela sua própria voz a história da sua visão milagrosa de São Francisco Xavier e a história do seu próprio futuro na Ásia. Um mês depois, essa história já tinha sido impressa com o título Relaçam de hum prodigioso milagre, desta vez contada por um jesuíta português, Manuel de Lima. A fama de Mastrilli precedeu a sua chegada à famosa capital do império português oriental, o centro da empresa missionária jesuíta na Ásia. De acordo com os seus hagiógrafos seiscentistas, desde que Francisco Xavier lhe aparecera em Nápoles, em 1633, salvando-o depois de um golpe na cabeça que o podia ter levado à morte, Mastrili tinha ganho a reputação de futuro santo. 1 Quando fi cou semi-inconsciente depois de um martelo lhe ter caído sobre a cabeça, a 8 de Dezembro de 1633, Mastrilli estava longe de uma vida missionária do tipo heróico. Contudo, o corte físico constituiu, também, um choque místico, permitindo novas possibilidades discursivas, itinerários psicológicos e movimentos geográfi cos. Equipado com um capital de santidade abundante, Mastrili mostrou-se capaz de mobilizar pessoas e recursos materiais para o seu projecto pessoal: viajar até à Índia e morrer mártir ad majorem Dei gloria. Ao colar a sua história à Vida ou, melhor dizendo, à vida depois da morte, do santo jesuíta recentemente canonizado, Francisco Xavier, Mastrilli reinventou a sua própria vida como uma série de eventos proféticos, todos eles conduzindo aos dois anos dramáticos de apostolado na Ásia, coroados, por fi m, com o martírio. É este triunfalismo e sensibilidade profética na narrativa da sua vida que é interessante, pois introduz uma espécie de jogo do tempo, para parafrasear livremente Paul Ricoeur, para quem o tempo confi gura a narrativa, e a narrativa refi gura o tempo. 2 O enunciado profético é simultaneamente uma resistência sancionada (ou não) à autoridade do pre

Research paper thumbnail of One Civility, But Multiple Religions": Jesuit Mission Among St. Thomas Christians in India (16th-17th Centuries)

Journal of Early Modern History, 2005

The encounter between the Jesuit missionaries and the St. Thomas Christians or Syrian Christians ... more The encounter between the Jesuit missionaries and the St. Thomas Christians or Syrian Christians in Kerala in the second part of the sixteenth century was for both sides a significant opening to different cultural beliefs and routines. An important and understudied outcome of this encounter, documented here on the Jesuit side, was the possibility of accepting religious plurality, at least within Christianity. The answers to the questions of how to deal with religious diversity in Christianity and globally, oscillated between demands for violent annihilation of the opponents and cultural relativism. The principal argument in this paper is that it was the encounter with these "ancient" Indian Christians that made the missionaries aware of the importance of the accommodationist method of conversion. This controversial method, employed in the Jesuit overseas missions among the "heathens", was therefore first thought out and tested in their mission among the St. Thoma...

Research paper thumbnail of Visualizing Portuguese Power The Political Use of Images in Portugal and its Overseas Empire (16th–18th Century

Research paper thumbnail of GEOFFREY A. ODDIE. Imagined Hinduism: British Protestant Missionary Constructions of Hinduism, 1793-1900. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications. 2006. Pp. 374. $32.95

The American Historical Review, 2007

Research paper thumbnail of <i>The Travels and Journal of Ambrosio Bembo</i>, and: <i>Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400–1800</i> (review)

Journal of World History, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Ser Brâmane na Goa da época moderna, rev. hist. (São Paulo), n. 172, p. 15-41, jan.-jun., 2015

The aim of this essay is to discuss Goan Brahmans' survival strategies under Portuguese dominion ... more The aim of this essay is to discuss Goan Brahmans' survival strategies under Portuguese dominion in the 17 th and the 18 th centuries. In the case of Goa, some Brahmans tried to reclaim their earlier religious identity, while living under a Christian power. The majority, however, refashioned themselves as Christians, while trying to keep, at the same time, their Brahman social status. Nevertheless, even after conversion, many of these Brahmans kept on referring to their connections beyond the context of the Portuguese imperial dominance. These two different attitudes towards their own identity and towards Brahman networks beyond the Portuguese empire allow us to ask several questions: What were Goan Brahman's survival strategies? What was the role played by Portuguese empire in shaping Brahman identity? What do these strategies reveal about Goan Brahman groups and their characteristics? And the way in which these experiences can be linked with other early modern experiences in Brahman identity formation, namely in what concerns their involvement in the scribal and clerical worlds of early modern India?

Research paper thumbnail of The pulpit trap: Possession and personhood in colonial Goa, RES: Anthropology and aesthetics, 65/66 2014/2015,  pp.298-315

Research paper thumbnail of  Introduction (in English to the edited volume,Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle) Corinne Lefèvre, Ines G. Zupanov &  Jorge Flores, eds.   Collection "Puruṣārtha", no. 33, Paris, 2015)

Research paper thumbnail of Garcia de Orta's Coloquios: Context and Afterlife of a Dialogue", in Medicine, Trade and Empire; Garcia de Orta's Colloquis of the Simples and Drugs of India (1563) in Context, ed. Palmira Fontes da Costa, Ashgate, 2015 (uncorrected proof)5

(abstract of the conference paper) Garcia de Orta’s Colóquios; Context and Afterlife of a Dialog... more (abstract of the conference paper)

Garcia de Orta’s Colóquios;
Context and Afterlife of a Dialogue

Dialogue replicates life and is more natural than monologue. This is the conclusion of the Russian Formalists (Yakubinski and Bakhtin) who were perhaps in a unique position to appreciate “dialogism” in literature precisely because they lived in a totalitarian system. Literary dialogues and dialogical texts have always been vessels and vehicles of political and cultural critique. They also cultivated difference from alternative opinions to strong commitments to diversity.
Garcia de Orta’s Colóquios belong to the genre of Renaissance “documentary” dialogue, which descended from Plato and Cicero and was a preferred literary form of the 15th-century humanists. I have argued elsewhere that this book was Orta’s lifesaver, as he tried to survive in the shadow of the Goan Inquisition, but in this presentation, I want to argue that it reveals the ethos of its interlocutors and is a window display of Portuguese early 16th-century colonial society as it faced Asian (and global) diversity. By looking into “facts” of botanical and medical diversity, Orta also recorded and interpreted the “values” and the relationships in which they made sense.
In the first part of the presentation, my aim is to demonstrate how particular episodes in Colóquios served to advertise Orta’s ideals of civic and cosmopolitan etiquette. In the second part, I will look into reception of the Colóquios and its afterlife in the 16th and 17th century translations (in French and Italian) and will end with the British Victorian, amputated version. The question I will try to answer is what happened to both facts and values and to a dialogic form - in translation.

Research paper thumbnail of  “Quest for Permanence in the Tropics: Portuguese Bioprospecting in Asia (16th-18th Centuries)”,  with Angela Barreto Xavier, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 57 (2014), pp. 511-548.

The history of agricultural, botanical, pharmacological, and medical exchanges is one of the most... more The history of agricultural, botanical, pharmacological, and medical exchanges is one of the most fascinating chapters in early modern natural history. Until recently, however, historiography has been dominated by the British experience from the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, with Kew Gardens at the center of the "green imperialism." In this article we address the hard-won knowledge acquired by those who participated in early modern Portuguese imperial bioprospecting in Asia. The Portuguese were the first to transplant important economic plants from one continent to another, on their imposing colonial chessboard. In spite of this, the history of Portuguese bioprospecting is still fragmentary, especially with respect to India and the Indian Ocean. We argue not only that the Portuguese-imperial officials, missionaries, and the people connected with them, all living and working under the banner of the Portuguese empire-were interested in gathering knowledge but also that the results of their endeavors were relevant for the development of natural history in the early modern period and that they were important actors within the larger community of naturalists.

Research paper thumbnail of Passage to India: Jesuit Spiritual Economy between Martyrdom and Profit in the Seventeenth Century

Historians today seem to agree that passions for spices and for acquisition of objects and territ... more Historians today seem to agree that passions for spices and for acquisition of objects and territories from the late fifteenth century fuelled the "mercantile revolution" on a global scale. This article will argue that spirituality and commercial enterprise worked together to produce material objects, some of exceptional artistry. These artifacts, books, sculptures, paintings and the attractive narratives written about or around them, sparked spiritual enthusiasm wherever they reached their audience and became fundraising tools for further spiritual conquest and for creation of new material objects. In this case, I will trace the career of one particular Jesuit missionary, Marcello Mastrilli, who invented his own life and future martyrdom with a series of printed books and works of art, all marked by Mastrilli's spiritual energy and his ability to fill the Jesuit purse.

Research paper thumbnail of “ Introduction – La question des Lumières en Inde: un champ à revisiter? ”, with M. Fourcade, in L’Inde des Lumières; Entre orientalisme et sciences sociales (XVI-XIXe s.)/ Indian Enlightenment : Between Orientalism and Social Sciences (16th-19th century),  Purusartha, CEIAS/EHESS, February  2013.

Research paper thumbnail of  “ ‘I am a great sinner’: Missionary Dialogues in India (16th century)”, Cultural Dialogue in South Asia and Beyond: Narratives, Images and Community (16th-19th centuries, coedited with Corinne Lefèvre, in JESHO 55.2-3 (June 2012), Leiden, pp. 415-446.

Research paper thumbnail of Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud

Le cosmopolitisme est-il un enfant de la modernité occidentale ou peut-on le trouver en d’autres ... more Le cosmopolitisme est-il un enfant de la modernité occidentale ou peut-on le trouver en d’autres temps et d’autres lieux ? Cet ouvrage entend apporter une réponse à cette question aujourd’hui vivement débattue en retraçant ses contours en tant que pratique et Weltanschauung dans une région du monde - l’Asie du Sud - pôle majeur de l’espace de circulation de l’Asie musulmane et nœud des flux humains, matériels et immatériels reliant l’Occident à l’Orient au cours des XVIe-XVIIIe siècles. Terre d’accueil pour de nombreuses élites en quête de patronage, port d’ancrage pour d’autres ou encore simple étape au sein de parcours transocéaniques guidés par l’appétit de richesses ou de savoirs, l’Asie du Sud de la première modernité est un terreau particulièrement fertile pour la construction d’identités et de visions cosmopolites, tant au niveau individuel qu’à celui de la polis. Aussi hétérogène comme idée que comme habitus, le cosmopolitisme est abordé ici sous un angle résolument pluriel favorisant la multiplication des approches (acteurs, langues, lieux, activités à « vocation » cosmopolite) et le croisement de ses différentes manifestations - moghole, marathe, européennes, etc. - afin d’en faire mieux ressortir les constantes, variantes, limites et interactions. Dans cette optique, les études réunies au fil de ce numéro illustrent bel et bien ce que le « citoyen du monde » des Lumières doit aux « Indes orientales »

Research paper thumbnail of Divins remèdes

L’abondance des sources qu’offre l’Asie du Sud - à la fois textuelles, historiques et ethnographi... more L’abondance des sources qu’offre l’Asie du Sud - à la fois textuelles, historiques et ethnographiques - au croisement et à l’interaction du médical et du religieux, rend difficile l’analyse que ce volume se propose d’accomplir. En fait, la porosité des frontières entre les domaines nous oblige à questionner les outils mêmes de notre enquête. Si l’objectif est de focaliser l’attention sur les recoupements entre soins et cultes, remèdes et rituels, thérapeutes et officiants, le risque encouru est celui de dissoudre et de confondre les deux domaines, en traitant tout acte thérapeutique de religieux, et tout acte religieux de thérapeutique. Ce gommage ferait disparaître la raison d’être de ce volume, qui consiste à étudier les articulations, les jointures, et parfois les frictions, entre le médical et le religieux. Toutefois, une définition des termes « médecine » et « religion » n’entre pas dans le propos de cet ouvrage. La notion abstraite de « religion » est une construction conceptuelle récente, liée à l’émergence des États modernes et à l’expansion européenne, et n’a pas d’équivalent dans la plupart des langues indiennes, de même que le terme « médecine » rend difficilement compte de l’hétérogénéité des savoirs et des pratiques thérapeutiques que l’on rencontre dans le monde indien. Les contributions ici réunies, sans donner une définition univoque des champs du religieux et du médical, accordent une importance majeure aux concepts et aux terminologies locales montrant ainsi la pluralité des formes à travers lesquelles les représentations cosmologiques, rituelles et divines sont reliées aux théories et aux pratiques de santé

Research paper thumbnail of Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat, Jean-Pierre Mahé & Jean Leclant (éd.), L 'œuvre scientifique des missionnaire en Asie. Journée d'études organisée par l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres et la Société asiatique (Palais de l'Institut de France, 9 janvier 2009), 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Profit and Souls in Global Missions (16th–18th Centuries)

Trade and Finance in Global Missions (16th-18th Centuries), 2020

Research paper thumbnail of Trade and Finance in Global Missions (16th-18th Centuries)

Research paper thumbnail of Intercultural Encounter and the Jesuit Mission in South Asia (16th–18th Centuries), written by Anand Amaladass et Ines G. Županov (eds.)

Social Sciences and Missions, 2016

Research paper thumbnail of Cultural Mobility

Cultural Mobility is a blueprint and a model for understanding the patterns of meaning that human... more Cultural Mobility is a blueprint and a model for understanding the patterns of meaning that human societies create. Drawn from a wide range of disciplines, the essays collected here under the distinguished editorial guidance of Stephen Greenblatt share the conviction that cultures, even traditional cultures, are rarely stable or fixed. Radical mobility is not a phenomenon of the twenty-first century alone, but is a key constituent element of human life in virtually all periods. Yet academic accounts of culture tend to operate on exactly the opposite assumption and to celebrate what they imagine to be rooted or whole or undamaged. To grasp the shaping power of colonization, exile, emigration, wandering, contamination, and unexpected, random events, along with the fierce compulsions of greed, longing, and restlessness, cultural analysis needs to operate with a new set of principles. An international group of authors spells out these principles and puts them into practice.

Research paper thumbnail of “A História do Futuro”

Cultura, 2007

Profecias jesuítas móveis de Nápoles para a Índia e para o Brasil (século XVII) * Inês Zupanov **... more Profecias jesuítas móveis de Nápoles para a Índia e para o Brasil (século XVII) * Inês Zupanov ** Pouco depois de chegar a Goa, nos últimos dias de 1635, Marcello Francesco Mastrilli, um jesuíta de Nápoles, contou pela sua própria voz a história da sua visão milagrosa de São Francisco Xavier e a história do seu próprio futuro na Ásia. Um mês depois, essa história já tinha sido impressa com o título Relaçam de hum prodigioso milagre, desta vez contada por um jesuíta português, Manuel de Lima. A fama de Mastrilli precedeu a sua chegada à famosa capital do império português oriental, o centro da empresa missionária jesuíta na Ásia. De acordo com os seus hagiógrafos seiscentistas, desde que Francisco Xavier lhe aparecera em Nápoles, em 1633, salvando-o depois de um golpe na cabeça que o podia ter levado à morte, Mastrili tinha ganho a reputação de futuro santo. 1 Quando fi cou semi-inconsciente depois de um martelo lhe ter caído sobre a cabeça, a 8 de Dezembro de 1633, Mastrilli estava longe de uma vida missionária do tipo heróico. Contudo, o corte físico constituiu, também, um choque místico, permitindo novas possibilidades discursivas, itinerários psicológicos e movimentos geográfi cos. Equipado com um capital de santidade abundante, Mastrili mostrou-se capaz de mobilizar pessoas e recursos materiais para o seu projecto pessoal: viajar até à Índia e morrer mártir ad majorem Dei gloria. Ao colar a sua história à Vida ou, melhor dizendo, à vida depois da morte, do santo jesuíta recentemente canonizado, Francisco Xavier, Mastrilli reinventou a sua própria vida como uma série de eventos proféticos, todos eles conduzindo aos dois anos dramáticos de apostolado na Ásia, coroados, por fi m, com o martírio. É este triunfalismo e sensibilidade profética na narrativa da sua vida que é interessante, pois introduz uma espécie de jogo do tempo, para parafrasear livremente Paul Ricoeur, para quem o tempo confi gura a narrativa, e a narrativa refi gura o tempo. 2 O enunciado profético é simultaneamente uma resistência sancionada (ou não) à autoridade do pre

Research paper thumbnail of One Civility, But Multiple Religions": Jesuit Mission Among St. Thomas Christians in India (16th-17th Centuries)

Journal of Early Modern History, 2005

The encounter between the Jesuit missionaries and the St. Thomas Christians or Syrian Christians ... more The encounter between the Jesuit missionaries and the St. Thomas Christians or Syrian Christians in Kerala in the second part of the sixteenth century was for both sides a significant opening to different cultural beliefs and routines. An important and understudied outcome of this encounter, documented here on the Jesuit side, was the possibility of accepting religious plurality, at least within Christianity. The answers to the questions of how to deal with religious diversity in Christianity and globally, oscillated between demands for violent annihilation of the opponents and cultural relativism. The principal argument in this paper is that it was the encounter with these "ancient" Indian Christians that made the missionaries aware of the importance of the accommodationist method of conversion. This controversial method, employed in the Jesuit overseas missions among the "heathens", was therefore first thought out and tested in their mission among the St. Thoma...

Research paper thumbnail of Visualizing Portuguese Power The Political Use of Images in Portugal and its Overseas Empire (16th–18th Century

Research paper thumbnail of GEOFFREY A. ODDIE. Imagined Hinduism: British Protestant Missionary Constructions of Hinduism, 1793-1900. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications. 2006. Pp. 374. $32.95

The American Historical Review, 2007

Research paper thumbnail of <i>The Travels and Journal of Ambrosio Bembo</i>, and: <i>Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discoveries, 1400–1800</i> (review)

Journal of World History, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Ser Brâmane na Goa da época moderna, rev. hist. (São Paulo), n. 172, p. 15-41, jan.-jun., 2015

The aim of this essay is to discuss Goan Brahmans' survival strategies under Portuguese dominion ... more The aim of this essay is to discuss Goan Brahmans' survival strategies under Portuguese dominion in the 17 th and the 18 th centuries. In the case of Goa, some Brahmans tried to reclaim their earlier religious identity, while living under a Christian power. The majority, however, refashioned themselves as Christians, while trying to keep, at the same time, their Brahman social status. Nevertheless, even after conversion, many of these Brahmans kept on referring to their connections beyond the context of the Portuguese imperial dominance. These two different attitudes towards their own identity and towards Brahman networks beyond the Portuguese empire allow us to ask several questions: What were Goan Brahman's survival strategies? What was the role played by Portuguese empire in shaping Brahman identity? What do these strategies reveal about Goan Brahman groups and their characteristics? And the way in which these experiences can be linked with other early modern experiences in Brahman identity formation, namely in what concerns their involvement in the scribal and clerical worlds of early modern India?

Research paper thumbnail of The pulpit trap: Possession and personhood in colonial Goa, RES: Anthropology and aesthetics, 65/66 2014/2015,  pp.298-315

Research paper thumbnail of  Introduction (in English to the edited volume,Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle) Corinne Lefèvre, Ines G. Zupanov &  Jorge Flores, eds.   Collection "Puruṣārtha", no. 33, Paris, 2015)

Research paper thumbnail of Garcia de Orta's Coloquios: Context and Afterlife of a Dialogue", in Medicine, Trade and Empire; Garcia de Orta's Colloquis of the Simples and Drugs of India (1563) in Context, ed. Palmira Fontes da Costa, Ashgate, 2015 (uncorrected proof)5

(abstract of the conference paper) Garcia de Orta’s Colóquios; Context and Afterlife of a Dialog... more (abstract of the conference paper)

Garcia de Orta’s Colóquios;
Context and Afterlife of a Dialogue

Dialogue replicates life and is more natural than monologue. This is the conclusion of the Russian Formalists (Yakubinski and Bakhtin) who were perhaps in a unique position to appreciate “dialogism” in literature precisely because they lived in a totalitarian system. Literary dialogues and dialogical texts have always been vessels and vehicles of political and cultural critique. They also cultivated difference from alternative opinions to strong commitments to diversity.
Garcia de Orta’s Colóquios belong to the genre of Renaissance “documentary” dialogue, which descended from Plato and Cicero and was a preferred literary form of the 15th-century humanists. I have argued elsewhere that this book was Orta’s lifesaver, as he tried to survive in the shadow of the Goan Inquisition, but in this presentation, I want to argue that it reveals the ethos of its interlocutors and is a window display of Portuguese early 16th-century colonial society as it faced Asian (and global) diversity. By looking into “facts” of botanical and medical diversity, Orta also recorded and interpreted the “values” and the relationships in which they made sense.
In the first part of the presentation, my aim is to demonstrate how particular episodes in Colóquios served to advertise Orta’s ideals of civic and cosmopolitan etiquette. In the second part, I will look into reception of the Colóquios and its afterlife in the 16th and 17th century translations (in French and Italian) and will end with the British Victorian, amputated version. The question I will try to answer is what happened to both facts and values and to a dialogic form - in translation.

Research paper thumbnail of  “Quest for Permanence in the Tropics: Portuguese Bioprospecting in Asia (16th-18th Centuries)”,  with Angela Barreto Xavier, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 57 (2014), pp. 511-548.

The history of agricultural, botanical, pharmacological, and medical exchanges is one of the most... more The history of agricultural, botanical, pharmacological, and medical exchanges is one of the most fascinating chapters in early modern natural history. Until recently, however, historiography has been dominated by the British experience from the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, with Kew Gardens at the center of the "green imperialism." In this article we address the hard-won knowledge acquired by those who participated in early modern Portuguese imperial bioprospecting in Asia. The Portuguese were the first to transplant important economic plants from one continent to another, on their imposing colonial chessboard. In spite of this, the history of Portuguese bioprospecting is still fragmentary, especially with respect to India and the Indian Ocean. We argue not only that the Portuguese-imperial officials, missionaries, and the people connected with them, all living and working under the banner of the Portuguese empire-were interested in gathering knowledge but also that the results of their endeavors were relevant for the development of natural history in the early modern period and that they were important actors within the larger community of naturalists.

Research paper thumbnail of Passage to India: Jesuit Spiritual Economy between Martyrdom and Profit in the Seventeenth Century

Historians today seem to agree that passions for spices and for acquisition of objects and territ... more Historians today seem to agree that passions for spices and for acquisition of objects and territories from the late fifteenth century fuelled the "mercantile revolution" on a global scale. This article will argue that spirituality and commercial enterprise worked together to produce material objects, some of exceptional artistry. These artifacts, books, sculptures, paintings and the attractive narratives written about or around them, sparked spiritual enthusiasm wherever they reached their audience and became fundraising tools for further spiritual conquest and for creation of new material objects. In this case, I will trace the career of one particular Jesuit missionary, Marcello Mastrilli, who invented his own life and future martyrdom with a series of printed books and works of art, all marked by Mastrilli's spiritual energy and his ability to fill the Jesuit purse.

Research paper thumbnail of “ Introduction – La question des Lumières en Inde: un champ à revisiter? ”, with M. Fourcade, in L’Inde des Lumières; Entre orientalisme et sciences sociales (XVI-XIXe s.)/ Indian Enlightenment : Between Orientalism and Social Sciences (16th-19th century),  Purusartha, CEIAS/EHESS, February  2013.

Research paper thumbnail of  “ ‘I am a great sinner’: Missionary Dialogues in India (16th century)”, Cultural Dialogue in South Asia and Beyond: Narratives, Images and Community (16th-19th centuries, coedited with Corinne Lefèvre, in JESHO 55.2-3 (June 2012), Leiden, pp. 415-446.