Der volle Titel des Pro­jek­ts, durchge­führt im Rah­men des Schw­er­punk­t­pro­gramms „Über­set­zungskul­turen der Frühen Neuzeit“, lautet: „Trans­la­tion and French ency­clopaedism in the Age of Enlight­en­ment (1680–1800): knowl­edge trans­fer, medi­a­tors, inter­cul­tur­al process­es of appro­pri­a­tion and adap­tion“.
Sein Ziel: eine möglichst voll­ständi­ge Doku­men­ta­tion der Enzyk­lopä­di­en und ihrer Über­set­zun­gen im Zeital­ter der Aufk­lärung in Form ein­er Daten­bank.

Ency­clopae­dias aims to pro­vide the most com­plete doc­u­men­ta­tion of ency­clopae­dias and their trans­la­tions in the Age of Enlight­en­ment (1680–1800). The data­base includes bib­li­o­graph­ic infor­ma­tion on orig­i­nal ver­sions and their trans­la­tions as well as links to dig­i­tized copies. In this way, it enables a sys­tem­at­ic trac­ing of the gen­e­sis of impor­tant ency­clopaedic works in the Age of Enlight­en­ment and of the genre’s spread across Europe through­out the long 18th cen­tu­ry.

You can browse the data­base by para­mount title (e.g. Alcedo Dic­cionario geográ­fi­co or Diderot Ency­clopédie) to check on all ency­clopaedic works relat­ed to the title in the orig­i­nal lan­guage of com­po­si­tion or in trans­la­tion. You can also browse the data­base by author (e.g. Bayle, Pierre or Cham­bers, Ephraim) for infor­ma­tion about authors, trans­la­tors and the relat­ed ency­clopaedic dic­tio­nar­ies. If you are search­ing for par­tic­u­lar sub­ject mat­ter, there is also the pos­si­bil­i­ty for an advanced search.

Project descrip­tion

Ency­clopae­dias is one result of the research project Trans­la­tion and French ency­clopaedism in the Age of Enlight­en­ment (1680–1800): knowl­edge trans­fer, medi­a­tors, inter­cul­tur­al process­es of appro­pri­a­tion and adap­ta­tion spon­sored by Deutsche Forschungs­ge­mein­schaft (SPP 2130). Over three years, a total of more than 380 ency­clopaedic dic­tio­nar­ies and their (lin­guis­tic) trans­la­tions and/or adap­ta­tions have been tracked, checked for authen­tic­i­ty, and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly record­ed, includ­ing para­tex­tu­al speci­fici­ties. Where avail­able, links to dig­i­tized copies of the ency­clopaedic works and their trans­la­tions have also been added to the data­base.

Against the back­ground of the ency­clopae­dia as one of the lead­ing media of the 18th cen­tu­ry and its transna­tion­al con­texts of cre­ation, the research project exam­ines the role of trans­la­tion process­es in the for­ma­tion of a Euro­pean knowl­edge and com­mu­ni­ca­tion space in the Age of Enlight­en­ment. The three oth­er axes of the research project were focus­ing on: process­es of cul­tur­al adap­ta­tion, appro­pri­a­tion and autonomi­sa­tion tak­ing place in indi­vid­ual trans­la­tion projects, the mean­ing of trans­la­tors as inter­cul­tur­al medi­a­tors and impor­tant actors in the con­text of the trans­mis­sion of ency­clopaedic knowl­edge, and the inves­ti­ga­tion of the role that trans­la­tions played in the edit­ing of coun­try-spe­cif­ic lem­mas of the most impor­tant French ency­clopae­dia of the Enlight­en­ment: Diderot’s and D’Alembert’s Ency­clopédie.

In the con­text of the project, sev­er­al new insights into trans­la­tion process­es in the ear­ly mod­ern peri­od have thus been gained.

https://encyclopaedias.uni-regensburg.de/