Mapping and Translating Spaces, Cultures, and Languages. The Missions Connected to the Portuguese Empire (1540-1700)
Dal 29/01/2026 ore 09.30 al 30/01/2026 ore 20.00
Sapienza Università di Roma / CNR Headquarters,
P.le Aldo Moro, 5-7
Roma
From 29 to 30 January 2026, the international conference Mapping and Translating Spaces, Cultures, and Languages. Experiences from the Missions Connected to the Portuguese Empire (1540-1700) will take place in Rome, hosted by Sapienza University of Rome and the CNR Central Headquarters.
The conference is organized as , as “Mapping and Translating Spaces, Cultures, and Languages. Experiences from the Missions Connected to the Portuguese Empire” (Ref. 20222SY2K7 – CUP: B53D23001120006), coordinated by Angelo Maria Cattaneo (CNR ISEM), in collaboration with a Research Unit of Sapienza University of Rome coordinated by Simone Celani.
The conference and the eponymous PRIN 2022 project, organized by the Institute of History of Mediterranean Europe of the National Research Council (ISEM CNR) and by the Department of European, American and Intercultural Studies of Sapienza University of Rome (DSEAI – Sapienza), bring together scholars in history, mission history, linguistics, and translation studies to reflect on the processes of cultural, linguistic, and epistemic mediation that characterized the heterogeneous missions connected to the Portuguese Empire—from Brazil to Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Indochina, China, and Japan—between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The conference explores practices of mapping and translation as central activities in the production of knowledge and in the construction of spaces of encounter within contexts of asymmetric power relations between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the early modern period. Through an interdisciplinary, comparative, and connected-history approach, the conference sessions document interactions between European agents—primarily missionaries—and African, Amerindian, and Asian communities, with the aim of developing a comparative history of the processes that led, on the one hand, to mutual learning and the shared use of languages and, on the other, to forms of imposition, resistance, rejection, and erosion.
The conference also examines the emergence of multilingual spaces, communities, and identities in the early modern period and investigates how power asymmetries shaped intercultural interactions, influencing their linguistic and cultural outcomes. Particular attention is devoted to the construction and representation of space; to forms of religious and cultural translation; to the learning, codification, and Romanization of writing systems; and to the language policies of missionary orders, the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, and the Iberian empires, highlighting the central role of local mediators.
The program is structured over two days:
- 29 January (morning and afternoon) and 30 January (afternoon), at Sapienza University of Rome, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Archaeology Lecture Hall;
- 30 January (morning), at the CNR – Central Headquarters, Central Library “G. Marconi”, Room A.
Participation is free of charge and open to the public.
The Programme and the Book of Abstracts are available online.
Organizzato da:
Cnr-Isem
Referente organizzativo:
Paola Avallone
Cnr-Isem
via Tuveri 130,
Cagliari
paola.avallone@cnr.it
Modalità di accesso: ingresso libero
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