The early period of colonialism confronted a militant Christianity (mainly Roman Catholicism) seeking to convert indigenous peoples to the Latin Church with new linguistic challenges. Since failures of mission could no longer be overseen, problems of translating religious language became paramount in theoretical considerations. Reflections on language and theory of mission were closely connected.

The brutal exploitation of the colonised lands also triggered processes of reflection and alternative methods of mission, based on considerations on communication and translation (e.g. Las Casas, José de Acosta, Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, Jesuit mission in India and East Asia). As it was not possible to refer to commonly shared conceptual and historical contexts, the reference to the senses and/or religious experience as a medium of the recognition of God became more important.

The workshop intends to examine the development of religious language in a special kind of contact situation, i.e. the specific influence of colonial encounters on the formation and development of religious language in both Europe and the colonies (or other cultural spaces outside Europe). It attempts to scrutinise if knowledge of non-European languages challenged and changed religious concepts and notions in the European language. Did the European religious language(s) become more sense-related as a result of the colonial encounter? What (new) role did the transcendence-immanence distinction play?

The workshop invites papers examining case studies on the period between 1500 and 1700/50, covering the space between the Americas to East Asia. The language of the workshop is English. Travel expenses will be covered by the organizers. It is planned to publish the papers in an international peer-reviewed book series.

We welcome exposes for papers (title, 200-300 words, brief CV) until 3 April 2017. Decisions will be send out until 7 April 2017.