22. Oktober 2026

We kindly invite you to this lecture in English language on Thursday, November 5th, 2026, at 16:15–17:45 h (CET/MEZ).

Topic:

    "Jesuit Missionary Aesthetics and the Temporalities of Inculturation: Between Spaces of Experience and Horizons of Expectation in Colonial Java (1896–1940)"

Speaker:
    Rémy Madinier

Affiliation:
    French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)/École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon), France

Date/Time:
    November 5th, 2026 (Thursday), 16:15 – 17:45 (CET/MEZ)

Language:
    English

Venue:
     Seminarraum A0009

     Sedanstraße 19

     20146 Hamburg

About this lecture:
In this presentation, Rémy Madinier will examine Jesuit missionary aesthetics in colonial Java through the conceptual framework developed by Reinhart Koselleck, particularly his distinction between spaces of experience and horizons of expectation. Rather than interpreting inculturation as a linear process of cultural accommodation, he will argue that Jesuit missionaries constantly negotiated multiple and often conflicting temporalities: those of the Catholic Church, the colonial state, Javanese civilization, and the emergence of Indonesian nationalism. Focusing on architecture, sacred art, and visual culture, Rémy Madinier will show how aesthetic choices became privileged sites where different spaces of experience and competing horizons of expectation were expressed, negotiated, and occasionally reconciled. Far from merely reflecting theological or political change, missionary aesthetics functioned as a medium through which different historical experiences and expectations of the future were articulated. More broadly, this presentation suggests that missionary aesthetics can be understood as a privileged site for observing the negotiation of multiple historical temporalities.

Brief profile:
Rémy Madinier is a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). He is also the author of Islam and Politics in Indonesia: The Masyumi Party Between Democracy and Integralism.

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