Description

Benjamin Schultze's conversation book was originally written between 1730 and 1732 in Madras/India, in Telugu and English and was published in 1750 in Halle/Germany, where two versions, one in German and one in English, were printed. Schultze's The Large and Renowned Town of the English Nation is the subject of all contributions collected in this volume. The editors asked researchers from different disciplines to critically engage with the early modern conversation book from the perspective of their own fields of expertise and particular research interests. And thus, almost three hundred years after a German Protestant missionary wrote a Telugu-English dialogue book in South India, Benjamin Schultze's Dialogue Book on Madras brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars and encourages them to engage in a fruitful and complex exchange of ideas. Taken together, the chapters form a landscape of geographical, historical, social, religious, biographical and linguistic perspectives and aspects, all of which are interconnected and shaped by the same source. The result is a journey through a unique cultural-historical document that shows how it can open up a space for discussion among scholars, leading to original new research questions and unexpected answers.