The Tranquebarian Society: Science, enlightenment and useful knowledge in the Danish-Norwegian East Indies, 1768–1813.

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Abstract

The Danish-Norwegian colony of Tranquebar on the Coromandel Coast of southeast India is a little explored case of science and ‘patriotic enlightenment’ in the colonial world of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. By reconnecting several disconnected national historiographies and archives, this essay reveals that in the period c. 1780-1820 Tranquebar emerged a local center of science in the colonial periphery of India. The symbol of this development was the establishment of The Tranquebarian Society, the third learned society east of the Cape of Good Hope. The essay examines the unique assemblage of local and global vectors of science that converged in the locality of Tranquebar, and it reveals the fusion of local problems and radical ideas of enlightenment, education and improvement that united government, mission and merchants in Tranquebar in the quest for ‘useful knowledge’.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftScandinavian Journal of History
Vol/bind40
Udgave nummer4
Antal sider27
ISSN0346-8755
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 16 jul. 2015
Udgivet eksterntJa

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