Translating the World for a German Public or Mediating the Radical in Small Genres
In: The Radical Enlightenment in GermanySearch for other papers by Birgit Tautz in
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Abstract
Taking Jonathan Israel’s statement on the clandestine nature of the Radical Enlightenment as a point of departure, this essay contends that Israel’s claim obscures radical subtexts in public voices of the Enlightenment; similarly, it eclipses the synergies that emerged among allegedly adversarial strands of the Enlightenment movement. In making my argument, I turn to the manner in which Raynal’s Historie philosophique des deux Indes was translated for the German public, namely by transposing this monumental text into small genres that were published in journals. Examples include excerpts from actual German-language translations of parts of the Histoire and anecdotes of colonial violence and anti-slavery rebellion. These translations mediated – and one might say: moderated – Radical Enlightenment discourse in popular style.