[KS] Re: Beyond Dallet

[Pankaj Mohan]

Dear Jacqui,

Re. your question: whether there are works which serve as Orientalist
critique of early missionaries' writings on Koreans, or other Asians.


There are many meticulously researched works on the role of Christianity in
articulating alternative notions of communal emotion and identity in the
19th Century India. I can't give you the exact titles, but I remember the
names of two authors, Susan Baley and Geoffrey Oddie whose works can be
fruitfully read. They have argued that Christian ethics and ethos were
adapted by the Indian converts (mostly in tribal areas) to the indigenous
parameters of understanding the sacred and the profane. Hoewever,these
authors have failed to look at the tension that was generated at the
intersection of dual character of Christianity in colonial
India--egalitarian values underpinning Christian theology and the doctrine
of Whiteman's Burden derived from the paradigmatic Enlightenment
rationalism which christian missionaries embodied. There is a recent book
(I have not read it yet,though I know it through reviews) which adopts
poststructuralist perspective to understand the issue. The book is 'Outside
the Fold: Conversion, Modernity and Belief' by G. Vishwanathan (1998).
Vishwanathan apparently argues that conversion 'unflolds the possibilities
of occupying multiple positions in relation to the state and religion'. She
conceptualises identity as  a fluid entity, an invented category, something
that is relational rather than oppositional.
For an understanding of the problem of Christian self-definition of
identity and culture in colonial Africa you need to look at a magisterial
work by James Comaroff (Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity,
Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa).

Hope it helps.

Pankaj Mohan

Pankaj N. Mohan
Asien-instituttet
University of Copenhagen
33, 5, Leifsgade, DK-2300
Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel:35328844 Fax: 35328835
Email: Mohan at hum.ku.dk 




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