Following the workshop “My First Time in India: Places, Peoples, Impressions and Stereotypes at the First Encounter,” held in Palermo on 6–7 February 2026, we are pleased to invite contributions to the resulting publication project First Encounters with India.

The workshop, organised within the framework of WG2 – Encounters between Europeans and Indians, Past and Present, brought together scholars interested in European accounts of first encounters with India. Building on the discussions held in Palermo, we now intend to prepare a collection devoted to European “first impressions” of India from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.

We warmly invite both workshop participants and other ESIND members to take part in this project.

Proposed publication

The proceedings will be published as an open-access volume by Sapienza Università Editrice (Sapienza University Press).

The volume will examine how travellers, missionaries, intellectuals, ambassadors, physicians, and other historical actors described their first encounters with India. Contributions may focus on the emotional, visual, sensory, or intellectual impressions recorded by individuals visiting the subcontinent for the first time.

Particular attention will be paid to how these first impressions mediated between dominant or inherited imaginaries of India and the realities that travellers encountered on the ground.

Contributions may address topics such as:

• encounters with local peoples and communities;
• landscapes, cities, villages, architecture, environments, and material culture;
• religious practices, rituals, and sacred places;
• food, drink, bodies, clothing, languages, and social customs;
• emotions, expectations, prejudices, and stereotypes;
• the ways in which first impressions mediated between dominant or inherited imaginaries of India and the country as experienced by travellers;
• continuity and change in European perceptions of India;
• the influence of the traveller’s cultural, linguistic, religious, national, or gender background;
• the ways in which first impressions were subsequently narrated and circulated in Europe.

The aim is to bring together sources from different periods, regions, languages, and disciplinary perspectives, highlighting the diversity of European ‘first impressions’ of India and the narrative strategies through which these experiences were represented.

Only following publication, selected excerpts from the contributions may also be curated for inclusion on the ESIND platform. These materials will help enrich the platform and support the development of a digital map of European first impressions of India, identifying travellers’ places of arrival and the landscapes, routes, and environments through which their first encounters with the country’s inhabitants took place.

Expression of interest

ESIND members who would like to contribute are invited to send the following:

• a provisional title;
• a short abstract of approximately 1,000 words (including a brief biographical note);
• an indication of the principal place, source, historical figure, and period examined.

Expressions of interest should be sent to Prof. Dr. Marianna Ferrara of the Sapienza University of Rome by email to marianna.ferrara@uniroma1.it by 15 November 2026.

Applicants will be informed of the outcome of the selection process by 15 December 2026. Authors of accepted proposals will be invited to submit their completed chapters by 31 May 2027.

Further information concerning the shared format, the expected length of the chapters, and the editorial guidelines will be circulated to the selected contributors.

We look forward to hearing from colleagues interested in joining this collaborative publication project.