Early Ethnography in New France by Dr A. Motsch

  • January 30, 2018
  • 4:00 PM - 5:00 CST
  • Cuneo Hall, Room 116
  • Marie Pellissier, mpellissier@luc.edu
  • None
  • Loyola students and faculty
    Open to the public.
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    Dr. Andreas Motsch, of the University of Toronto, will be lecturing on the work of Joseph-François Lafitau (1681-1746), a Jesuit missionary in New France who discovered American ginseng and wrote an extensive comparison of the customs of Native Americans to those of the people of antiquity. He did so in order to prove a key theological point: the common origin of mankind in biblical genesis. While his theological objectives reduce his ethnographic descriptions to means to an end, it is the ethnographic component which has kept the work from being forgotten. Dr. Motsch's talk will sketch the relation between theology, mission and ethnography and highlight the wealth of ethnographic insights the work still holds in text and image.