Ladislav Charouz

DPhil Research Topic: Christian Interpretations of the Asian Other in the Age of Discovery

The age of discovery raised serious theological and philosophical problems for the Christian world. How could alien civilisations attain such high levels of social organisation and harmony without the light of the gospel? And why were there so many parallels between foreign religious rituals and Christian ones? For some observers, the answer was natural religion, or even a forgotten history of Christian missionary work. Saint Thomas was supposed to have reached not only India, but even Japan and the Americas. Others, however, believed the answer was much more sinister: the only explanation for these complex and uncannily familiar societies was the Devil. Jealous of the worship God received, the Devil duped non-Christian people around the world to usurp his rightful praise, instituting dark and subversive imitations of Christian rituals.

For my PhD project, I want to research these competing (though sometimes complementary) beliefs among Christian visitors to Asia in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. I am particularly interested in what drove the Christians who thought about these problems to choose one explanation over the other: Was it membership in specific religious orders or differences in class status? Was it growing disappointment in the lack of converts and their backsliding or varying perceptions of the colonial enterprise? Or was it a theological shift caused by the Counterreformation in Europe rather than developments abroad?

Supervisor: Alan Strathern

Education

• Master of Philosophy in International Relations, Oxford University (2021-23)
• Master of Arts in History, Yale University (2017-19)
• Bachelor of Arts in History and English, Yale University (2015-19)

Scholarships

• Oxford-Clayton Graduate Scholarship / Titular Clarendon Scholar (2025-28)
• Nadační Fond: The Scholar Foundation (2021-22)
• Yale Light Fellowship for the study of Mandarin at the International Chinese Language Program, National Taiwan University (2019-20)

Academic Publications

• “‘Your Father the Devil’: Relations between Catholic and Protestant Missionaries in Nineteenth Century Taiwan,” Mission Studies, 2024, Vol. 41(1), p. 77-100.
• “‘Returning to the faith of our forefathers’: The Role of Historical Consciousness in Shaping Christian Missionary Work in 19th Century Taiwan,” Studies in World Christianity, 2022, Vol. 28(3), p. 394-414.
• “Naser al-Din Shah’s 1873 Visit to the World’s Fair in Vienna,” Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, 2022, Vol. 60(1), p.135-147.