Objective """Enlightenment on America, America on Enlightenment"" (AMEN) will investigate how the dispute about the New World in the 1770-80s addressed both the construction of a European consciousness and the attempt to provincialize Europe, as a first result of the crisis of the European (Spanish and British) Empires. I propose a dual track enquiry, focusing on the confrontation between the ""History of America"" (1777) by W. Robertson – Scottish historian of the strongest and richest existing European empire– and the ""Storia antica del Messico"" (1780-1) by F.S. Clavigero – Mexican Creole and disbanded Jesuit, exiled to Europe. Both raise important and problematic issues, which yield two alternative, competing conceptions of history and mankind. The analysis of these texts will constitute the first step toward a more general interpretation of eurocentrism, within the framework either of Enlightenment or of Christian universalism. As a further step, I intend to reconstruct Clavigero's reception in Europe. Like many other Creole Jesuits arriving in Europe after the expulsion of the order from Spanish and Portuguese Empires, and in a manner comparable to northern American writers like Jefferson, Clavigero provides another vision of the New World, conceptualizing Mexico’s glorious antiquities as European thinkers hark back to the ancient Roman and Greek heritage for the region of Europe. In Scotland, Clavigero's History, translated into English in 1787, had a strong impact, becoming the main source of the entry ""America"" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which constitutes the most important attempt in the British context to summarize existing knowledge about the world and its history. The comparative perspective provided by the Clavigero-Robertson debate aims to highlight two universal histories dominated by Europe. But their diverging Eurocentric conceptions of mankind offer a new vision of the world with Europe representing just one of different and competing provinces." Fields of science humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistoryancient history Keywords (limits of) modernity America Christianity Enlightenment Europe Humanities comparison early modern history historiography intellectual & cultural history postcolonial studies progress race Programme(s) FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) PEOPLE-2007-2-1.IEF - Marie Curie Action: "Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development" Call for proposal FP7-PEOPLE-2007-2-1-IEF See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF) Coordinator CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS EU contribution € 215 908,45 Address RUE MICHEL ANGE 3 75794 Paris France See on map Region Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris Activity type Research Organisations Administrative Contact Alain Weiswald (Mr.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
