Ex Oriente - beyond Orientalism: Indian Knowledge and Knowledge about India in the Worldviews and 'Lebenswelten' of a 'different' Latin American modernity (1880-1940)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Susanne Klengel
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 326928344

This project will contribute to the transregional study of historical South-South interrelations between the regions of Latin America and Asia. It examines intellectual and cultural ties between Latin America and India between 1880 (Hispano-American modernism) and 1940 (a time of upheaval due to global historical events), a period which is of central importance for the formation of the complex, entangled Latin American modernity. What is innovative about this research project is its focus on the Indian kowledge and the knowledge about India circulated among Latin American intellectuals that went far beyond the Orientalism of Hispano-American modernism. It comprised at that time an important but little-known element of the orientation knowledge of intellectuals and artists, who from various motives searched for intellectual and aesthetic alternatives to Western thought (including within so-called 'esoteric' systems of thought such as theosophy) and brought them into public discourse. These knowledge formations shall be reconstructed using approaches from intellectual history, cultural studies, and art history, and identified and positioned as constitutive elements of a different Latin American modernity. Equally important are the current discussions about Orientalism, which are challenging the Europe-focused critique of Orientalism in the style of Edward Said to include the perspective of the global South, as well as recent studies of Western Esotericism, which in Latin America as well may be labeled as 'rejected knowledge' as defined by W. Hanegraaff (2012). This project places special importance on an intensive and concrete examination of specific materials and historical-cultural contexts as well as the inclusion of Indian perspectives, which builds on many years of cooperation with Indian scholars of Latin American Studies.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants