During the religious expansion of Europe, especially from the first half of the 16th Century on, missionaries willing to spread their religious beliefs in Africa, America and Asia were confronted for the first time with the challenge of transmitting these beliefs to people with whom verbal communication was very difficult or even impossible. On the one hand, missionaries were encouraged to develop some new linguistic tools (dictionaries, grammars, translations); on the other hand, they were pushed to reconsider the communicative power of images. The session aims at dealing with the following questions: 1) In which historical and cultural contexts were images used alongside with words as devices of missionary communication? 2) What was the efficacy/inefficacy of words and images in the “anthropological” experience of missionaries? 3) What did modern European culture learn from this experience, and how did it influence the use of images within Europe (for example in the so called “internal missions of Europe”)? 4) How can the relationship between words and images in missionary contexts be reconsidered from the point of view of semiotics, cultural studies, post-colonial studies?
Word & Images in Religious Missions (XVI and XVII): Efficacy / Inefficacy
LEONE, Massimo
2008-01-01
Abstract
During the religious expansion of Europe, especially from the first half of the 16th Century on, missionaries willing to spread their religious beliefs in Africa, America and Asia were confronted for the first time with the challenge of transmitting these beliefs to people with whom verbal communication was very difficult or even impossible. On the one hand, missionaries were encouraged to develop some new linguistic tools (dictionaries, grammars, translations); on the other hand, they were pushed to reconsider the communicative power of images. The session aims at dealing with the following questions: 1) In which historical and cultural contexts were images used alongside with words as devices of missionary communication? 2) What was the efficacy/inefficacy of words and images in the “anthropological” experience of missionaries? 3) What did modern European culture learn from this experience, and how did it influence the use of images within Europe (for example in the so called “internal missions of Europe”)? 4) How can the relationship between words and images in missionary contexts be reconsidered from the point of view of semiotics, cultural studies, post-colonial studies?
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