The Representations of India in Early Modern English Print Production and Their Reception.
11th May 2026, 16:00 CET.
Speaker: Anastasia Tenchurina.
The early modern period was the time of both dramatic colonial expansion and the rise of print culture. This presentation investigates how early modern print contributed to the narratives of “otherness”, the development of the concept of race, and the legitimisation of oppression and inequality. It examines how racial constructs and colonial ideologies were employed to represent the Indian subcontinent and its inhabitants in the British Isles.
The portrayal of India moved from “very pleasant and rare matters” to “naturally unstable, ignorant of their own interests” inhabitants. The research proposes that the narrative transformation in the pre-colonial period acted as a precursor to the material colonial processes. The “conceptual process” of colonisation was disseminated through print culture. The research explores the spread of racial representations in pamphlets, travel accounts, and ballads.
The period from 1591 to 1790 provides a framework for studying the dissemination of racial representations. The project examines the availability and circulation of English sources and their reception in early modern print culture. The study demonstrates a pluralistic and interactional comparative approach to public discourse and the formation of narratives. It contributes to early modern transcultural print history, postcolonial theory, and pre-modern critical race studies.
Image: A Dutch account of Sir Thomas Roe’s travel to Jahangir’s court, published in 1656. Source: Wikipedia
Guests are welcome! To receive the Zoom link, please register your email address with the YRI team until a day before the event: yriteam.pcpsce@gmail.com
This lecture is part of:
Voices in Print: Young Researchers and Innovators Lecture Series 2026.
Knowledge, Power and Public Sphere 1500-1800
Organised by the PCPSCE Young Researchers and Innovators Team and Launched February 2026.
Lectures are livestreamed and later uploaded to the PCPSCE YouTube channel.
Previous lectures: