Northwestern Transculturality and German Discourse in the Age of European Colonialism

In Transculturality and German Discourse in the Age of European Colonialism, Chunjie Zhang delineates a transcultural discourse to highlight the influence of non-European cultures on German thinking in the polycentric global eighteenth century. Zhang examines the South Pacific travel writings of George Forster and Adelbert von Chamisso, literary works by August von Kotzebue and Johann Joachim Campe, Herder’s philosophy of history, and Kant’s theory of geography from the perspective of non-European impact during the age of Europe’s colonial expansion. She explores what these texts show about German and European superiority, the critique of the slave trade, European moral debauchery, acknowledgments of non-European cultural achievements, and sympathy with colonized peoples. Moving beyond the question of empire or enlightenment, Zhang’s book shifts from predominantly critiquing Eurocentrism toward diligently detecting global connections and enhancing the visibility of non-European contributions in global modernity. Offering much to scholars of literature, culture, and intellectual history, Zhang’s examination of the discordances in German transcultural discourse allows us to trace the divergent German, European, and non-European forces, desires, and ideas that collide, negotiate, and integrate in a key period of global modernity.