Translational Dimensions of Encyclopaedism in the Age of Enlightenment

2^nd Phase: Transatlantic Knowledge Transfer and the Dynamics of Cultural Translation – Textual Filiations, Cultural Transformations, (Post-)colonial Asymmetries

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Recent translation research has focused on various aspects of cultural mediation and transfer in the context of translation processes and—particularly under the influence of postcolonial theory—on aspects relating to (de)centralization, (de)hierarchization, and (dis)empowerment. The project seeks to interweave these two perspectives by using encyclopaedic dictionaries with a historical/geographical focus and their knowledge of America as examples. Furthermore, it will examine the reciprocal relationship when translation is understood as a process of transfer as well as one of power. The twin goals are, firstly, to investigate the shared transatlantic encyclopaedic knowledge space that was established in the context of diverse, reciprocal translation processes between Europe and America, and, secondly, to trace the dimensions of an increasingly independent American discursive system in terms of knowledge about America and the reception of that knowledge in the (former) colonial ‘metropolis’.

The project pursues these topics along three axes of investigation:

1. A systematic analysis of the first American encyclopaedias and French encyclopaedic dictionaries of the eighteenth century, which translated and critically commented on European, local, and Indigenous empirical knowledge about America in a specifically linguistic, generic, and cultural manner.
2. Tracing the forms of reception and appropriation of the new discourse on knowledge about America in the European ‘metropolis’ on the basis of a comparative analysis of the partial translations of Alcedo’s Diccionario geográfico-histórico de de las Indias Occidentales o América (Madrid 1786–1789) and the reception of the first American encyclopaedias in the European press.
3. An analysis of transatlantic social networks and cultural mediation processes that were relevant to the creation of the first American encyclopaedias.

The principal investigators are PD Dr habil. Susanne Greilich at Regensburg University and Professor Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink at Saarland University, who are both specialists in Romance philology. Carla Dalbeck is working on the project as a research assistant.

• Project website at the University of Saarland.
• Project presentation of phase I

Publications (project-related):

• PD Dr habil. Susanne Greilich
• Prof Dr Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink