Travelling libraries. Transatlantic orders of knowledge on the threshold of the 19th century

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Anne Kraume
• Subject Area: European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 431076155

The submitted project „Travelling libraries. Transatlantic orders of knowledge on the threshold of the 19th century” consists of two interconnected subprojects, each of which aims to analyse how the Dutch philosopher Cornelius de Pauw and his "Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains" play a significant role in the development of an independent Latin American discourse of knowledge. In addition, the project inquires how the latter shaped Latin American literature during the period of the Latin American independences from Spain. The first subproject focuses on the textual strategies which de Pauw’s work falls back upon as well as their contextualisation within the discourse about alterity in the European Enlightenment. The second subproject asks how discourses about knowledge are linked on a transatlantic level, implying that these discourses were adopted and transformed by authors such as Juan Ignacio Molina, Francisco Javier Clavijero und fray Servando Teresa de Mier. Both interconnected subprojects aim to explore the literary forms these authors rely on, and how these forms help transmit knowledge in different ways. Therefore, the general objective of this project is to explore, in an exemplary fashion, the relationship between literary forms and knowledge, as it becomes manifest in the transatlantic discourses about knowledge on the threshold of the 19th century.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants