An Interview with Joan-Pau Rubiés

Joan-Pau Rubiés is specialised in the study of cross-cultural encounters in the early modern world, from a perspective combining the contextual analysis of travel accounts and other ethnographic sources with the intellectual history of early modern Europe. Recent work has focused on the analysis of early modern ethnography and its intellectual impact in the period 1500-1800. This has involved developing various lines of research, including the history of travel, cross-cultural diplomacy, religious missions, early orientalism, race and racism, and the history of cosmopolitanism. In recent years, he has been working on the development a global comparative perspective on these various topics (encompassing both Asia and the New World) that might help interrogate critically the Eurocentric categories of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.