Transcultural Encounters Between Germany and India ─ Kindred Spirits in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Providing a comprehensive survey of cutting edge scholarship in the field of German-Indian and South Asian Studies, Transcultural Encounters between Germany and India looks at the history of German-Indian relations in the spheres of culture, politics, and intellectual life. Combining transnational, post-colonial, and comparative approaches, 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, illustrating how German encounters with India in the Imperial era alternately destabilized and reinforced the orientalist, capitalist, and nationalist underpinnings of German modernity.

Moving into the twentieth century, contributors discuss the full range of German responses to India as well as South Asian perceptions of Germany against the backdrop of war and socio-political revolution, including 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.

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.