1st Edition
Transcultural Encounters between Germany and India Kindred Spirits in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Providing a comprehensive survey of cutting edge scholarship in the field of German--Indian and South Asian Studies, the book looks at the history of German--Indian relations in the spheres of culture, politics, and intellectual life. Combining transnational, post-colonial, and comparative approaches, it includes the entire twentieth century, from the First World War and Weimar Republic to the Third Reich and Cold War era.
The book first examines the ways in which nineteenth-century "Indomania" figured in the creation of both German national identity and modern German scholarship on the Orient, and it illustrates how German encounters with India in the Imperial era alternately destabilized and reinforced the orientalist, capitalist, and nationalist underpinnings of German modernity. Contributors discuss the full range of German responses to India, and South Asian perceptions of Germany against the backdrop of war and socio-political revolution, as well as the Third Reich's ambivalent perceptions of India in the context of racism, religion, and occultism. The book concludes by exploring German--Indian relations in the era of decolonization and the Cold War.
Employing a diverse array of interdisciplinary approaches to understanding German--Indian encounters over the past two centuries, this book is of interest to students and scholars of Germany, India, Europe, and Asia, as well as history, political science, anthropology, philosophy, comparative literature, and religious studies.
Introduction Joanne Miyang Cho, Eric Kurlander, and Douglas T. McGetchin Part 1: Pre-Colonial Germany and India 1. Fostering Aesthetic Tolerance through Literary Translation: Georg Forster’s Śakuntalā Madhuvanti Karyekar 2. India and Hegel’s "Scientific" Method in the Phenomenology of Spirit Nicholas Germana 3. Claims and Disclaimers: Schopenhauer and the Cross-cultural Comparative Enterprise Sai Bhatawadekar Part 2: Imperial Germany and India 4. Rudolf Steiner and the Theosophy of Greed Jared Poley 5. The Redemption of the Scientist: Richard Garbe as a Chronicler of India Joydeep Bagchee and Vishwa P. Adluri 6. German Travelers to India at the Fin-de-siècle and Their Ambivalent Views of the Raj Perry Myers Part 3: Germany and India during Interwar Years 7. Germans in India between Kaiserreich and the End of World War II Joachim Oesterheld 8. Cross-Cultural Transfer and Indophilia in Count Hermann Keyserling Joanne Miyang Cho 9. Asian Anti-Imperialism and Leftist Antagonism in Weimar Germany Douglas T. McGetchin Part 4: Nazi Germany and India 10. Indian Political Activities in Germany, 1914-1945 Benjamin Zachariah 11. The Orientalist Roots of National Socialism? Nazism, Occultism, and South Asian Spirituality, 1919-1945 Eric Kurlander 12. The Melancholy of the Thinking Racist: India and the Ambiguities of Race in the Work of Hans F. K. Günther Lucia Staiano-Daniels Part 5: Germany and India since 1945 13. West Germany's India policy 1949 to 1972 Amit Das Gupta 14. East meets East: Fritz Bennewitz’s Theatrical Journeys from the GDR to India Joerg Esleben 15. The Passion of Paul Hacker: Indology, Orientalism, and Evangelism Joydeep Bagchee and Vishwa P. Adluri
Biography
Joanne Miyang Cho is Professor of History at William Paterson University of New Jersey, USA.
Eric Kurlander is Professor of Modern European History at Stetson University, USA.
Douglas T. McGetchin is Associate Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University, USA.
