Apostles and Heresiarchs Representations of Early Christianity in India
The Warburg Institute 25-26 April 2012
A major consequence of Vasco da Gama's expedition to India was the establishment of a new contact between the Roman Catholic Church and the Saint Thomas Christians in the Malabar region, an ancient and thriving community subject to the Eastern Syriac Patriarchate of the Church of the East, established in Mesopotamia. The arrival of the Portuguese meant also the beginning of Catholic missions in various regions of India. Our workshop aims to explore how the St Thomas Christians and the new Latin Christian communities of India were represented by European observers during the 16th and 17th century, by the means of analogies and evocations of the Christian origins. On the one hand it was widely believed that the conversion of Indian groups configured a new apostolic age; on the other hand, the early Christian heresy of Nestorianism was projected on the St Thomas Christians in order to establish a distance, impose otherness and enable reduction strategies. Both the apostles and the heresiarchs, the "heroes" and the "villains" of early Christianity, were active models in the European perception of early modern Indian Christianity. If early Christianity is an integral part of the classical tradition, then the history of its transmission to the modern world needs to include even India, as far and marginal it may appear to a Eurocentric perspective.
Participants
Paolo Aranha (Fellow at the Warburg Institute)
http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/home/staff-contacts/academic-staff/paolo-aranha/
Prof. Francisco Bethencourt, Kings College London
(http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/people/staff/academic/bethencourt/index.aspx)
Ms. Ananya Chakravarti, Doctoral Candidate, Department of History, University of Chicago
Prof. István Perczel; Professor Docens, Department of Medieval Studies, Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies Central European University, Budapest ( http://www.ceu.hu/profiles/faculty/istvan_perczel )
Dr Joan Pau Rubiés, Reader in International History, London School of Economics
(http://www2.lse.ac.uk/internationalHistory/whosWho/academicStaff/rubies.aspx)
Dr. Ricardo Ventura, Bolseiro de Pós-Doutoramento, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnólogia Centro de Literaturas e Culturas Lusófonas e Europeias, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa (http://ricardoventura.webnode.com/ )
Dr. Ines Županov, Chargée de Recherche (CR 1) au CNRS, Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud / École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris (http://www.ineszupanov.com/ )
Booking for this conference will open on 1 February 2012
Please note that the following public lecture, which might be of interest to people attending the conference, will be held on Wednesday 25 April 2012 at 17.00 at the Institute:
"Have the flames of Diamper destroyed the cultural and historical patrimony of the Saint Thomas Christians?"
Prof. István Perczel; Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest
Programme
10.00 Doors open - Registration
10.15 Welcome by Peter Mack, Director of the Warburg Institute
Ines G. Županov (CEIAS – EHESS, Paris)
The second apostolic age: Jesuit missions in India (16th-18th c.) - Keynote lecture
11.00 Coffee
11. 30 István Perczel (CEU, Budapest)
The role of Mar Abraham, the last Persian Metropolitan of the Saint Thomas Christians, in the light of the Kerala manuscripts
12.15 Joan-Pau Rubiés (LSE, London)
Heresy and accommodation in the work of Francisco Ros
1.00 Lunch in Common Room
2.00 Ananya Chakravarti (University of Chicago)
Making Saints in Salsete: Apostolic representations in the Christian Purāṇas?
2.45 Ricardo Ventura (Universidade de Lisboa)
Rome as Ur Caldeorum: an inquiry on the Diocese of Angamale (1596), in the brink of the Synod of Diamper
3.30 Tea
4.00 Paolo Aranha (Warburg Institute, London)
"Choraram-te, Tomé, o Gange e o Indo”: Portuguese representations of the Indian apostolate of St. Thomas
4.45 General discussion introduced by Francisco Bethencourt (King's College London)
5.30 Reception
Registration
£25 (£12.50 for concessions) including coffee/tea, and a sandwich lunch
To register please contact: warburg(at)sas.ac.uk