Transformations of Knowledge in Dutch Expansion

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, objects, texts and people travelled around the world on board Dutch ships. The essays in this book explore how these circulations transformed knowledge in Asian and European societies. They concentrate on epistemic consequences in the fields of historiography, geography, natural history, religion and philosophy, as well as in everyday life. Emphasizing transformations, the volume reconstructs small semantic shifts of knowledge and tentative adjustments to new cultural contexts. It unfolds the often conflict-ridden, complex and largely global history of specific pieces of knowledge as well as of generally-shared contemporary understandings regarding what could or could not be considered true. The book contributes to current debates about how to conceptualize the unsettled epistemologies of the early modern world.

Unter den Leitbegriffen ‚Pluralisierung‘ und ‚Autorität‘ präsentiert die Reihe Studien (des Münchner Sonderforschungsbereichs 573) zur Frühen Neuzeit vom 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert. Zunehmend erkennen die Kulturwissenschaften die Frühe Neuzeit als eine Epoche, die einerseits noch von den Traditionsvorgaben des Mittelalters abhängig ist, andererseits aber die Voraussetzungen für den Übergang ‚Alteuropas‘ zur Moderne schafft. Die interdisziplinär angelegte Reihe erkundet in literatur- und sprachwissenschaftlicher, historischer, philosophischer, kunst-, musik- und rechtsgeschichtlicher Perspektive diese grundlegende Dynamik der Epoche.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, objects, texts and people travelled around the world on board Dutch ships. The essays in this book explore how these circulations transformed knowledge in Asian and European societies. They concentrate on epistemic consequences in the fields of historiography, geography, natural history, religion and philosophy, as well as in everyday life. Emphasizing transformations, the volume reconstructs small semantic shifts of knowledge and tentative adjustments to new cultural contexts. It unfolds the often conflict-ridden, complex and largely global history of specific pieces of knowledge as well as of generally-shared contemporary understandings regarding what could or could not be considered true. The book contributes to current debates about how to conceptualize the unsettled epistemologies of the early modern world.