In 1730 a bilingual English-Telugu dialogue book was produced in Madras, India - a very early example of language learning dialogues in the South Asian colonial context. The text is rich in cultural details and explanations, and, unusually, makes space for the perspective of the local population, not merely in their role of servants to the European colonizers, but also explaining or participating in their culture. Twenty years later, in 1750, this text was published, without the Telugu, in Germany, and seemingly now explicitly aimed at the emerging market of German learners of English. Why? To answer this question, I will analyse this highly unusual text and situate it both against the background of German Pietist (Protestant) missionary work and in the context of early English language study in Germany.
All are welcome. Tea, coffee & wine will be available from 3:45pm - come a few minutes early if you'd like to get a drink before the seminar starts at 4pm.
Dates for Spring semester:
All the spring research seminars are 4-5pm in Trent B38a with tea/coffee from 3:45pm.
8 February, Astrid Köhler (QMUL; MLC Special Professor), ‘From Eros to Thanatos: The Shift from Spa to Sanatorium as a Popular Literary Setting’
22 February, Tomislav Stojanov (Nottingham) - title tbc
1 March, Alison Fell (Liverpool), ‘Joan of Arc as a Cultural Model for Armed Women in the Global South, 1870-1945'
8 March, Alicia Fernández Gallego-Casilda (Autonomous University of Barcelona/Nottingham) ‘Translation as Propaganda: British Poetic Involvement in the Spanish Civil War’
29 March, Adelaide McGinity-Peebles, ‘Representations of Russian and Soviet colonialism in the Arctic in Contemporary Cinema’