The workshop ‘Translating Cultures: Ideas and Materiality in Europe, c 1500-1800’ was unusual in many ways. Having postponed the event several times due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the workshop convenors Thomas Munck (Glasgow) and Gaby Mahlberg (Newcastle) eventually decided to run the workshop as a hybrid event with the majority of participants on-site at the Herzog August Bibliothek and a smaller group joining the meeting remotely from home. This was made possible by the excellent facilities at the HAB allowing on-site and remote participants to communicate freely.
The event kicked off on Monday morning with a brief welcome from the library’s director Peter Burschel and introductions by Munck and Mahlberg followed by three papers on Oriental scholarship in early modern Europe.
In her paper, ‘Translating the Ottoman Empire: the ideological use of translations of works about the Ottomans’, Ann Thomson (Florence) explored the different ways in which texts were transformed through translation, each significant amongst readers in raising awareness of the Ottoman world, but with different underlying intentions. Paul Rycaut’s History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire (1668), published after the Restoration of the Stuarts, for instance, originally juxtaposed oriental despotism with the benevolent rule of Charles II to counter the claims of the dissenters. The 1670 French translation by Pierre Briot, meanwhile, adapted the work to French sensibilities, dropping both the references to England and the epistle to the reader, while another French rendering by the pastor Henri Despier showed a particular interest in the Muslim sects described by Rycaut and drew parallels between their situation and that of the Huguenots in France. Despier thus used a narrative about the Ottoman Empire and Islam to criticize the persecution of Huguenots on the eve of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Similarly, James Porter’s Observations on the Religion, Law, Government and Manners of the Turks (1768) was translated into French by Claude François Bergier soon after it appeared and published in Paris in 1769. A new edition/ reprint appearing in Neuchâtel in 1770, however, added numerous footnotes opposing religious persecution, thus turning Porter’s work into a manifesto against Catholic intolerance in France.
Asaph Ben-Tov (Erfurt) offered the case study of ‘Johann Camman Jr (1584-1649) and the Story of Joseph: A Brunswick lawyer reading the Koran’. Taking Camman as his starting point, Ben-Tov demonstrated the extent to which amateur scholars in early modern Germany engaged with the ‘Turkish Bible’ not just for religious reasons but also out of sustained interest in both interlinear (literal) translation from Arabic and more culturally sensitive renditions. He also amassed a library of nearly ten thousand volumes, demonstrating his interest in scholarship and language learning. With his large library and transnational network of correspondents, Camman might have been a remarkable figure, but he was by no means a ‘lone wolf’ or ‘eccentric’. On the contrary, Ben-Tov argued, Camman’s interest in Arabic was shared by many contemporaries inside and outside of the academic world.
Luisa Simonutti (Milan) reflected on ‘Translation and toleration: an abridged version of Doctrina Mahumet in Locke’s papers’. Taking as her starting point a manuscript kept among the papers of the seventeenth-century thinker John Locke, Simonutti explored how the dialogue between the prophet and the rabbi might have come to Oxford and to what purpose it might have been used by Locke. She noted the importance of manuscript transmission (rather than print), but also recognised the questions of attribution and authorship associated with heavily annotated manuscript copies. In particular, she highlighted the way in which Islam features frequently in Locke’s writings on religious toleration and contributed to ideas about doctrinal unity. Contemporary interest in orientalism, she argued, went beyond an understanding of languages to an understanding of religion and cultures and also helped to contextualise the Christian Bible. Hence, works such as the Doctrina Mahumet were read by the likes of John Milton, John Locke as well as John Toland.
Translating Cultures 