Impersonating Angels: The Journey of Stories from India to Europe

A great many of the stories told in Europe come ultimately from India, and some of the history of their journey has been traced through a series of translations, teaching us much about the connections between scholarship and the rise of empires. In this talk the evidential importance of narrative oddities is examined through a fresh look at Sanskrit texts reflecting what must have been the Indian original of Boccaccio's tale of the friar who seduced a lady by impersonating the angel Gabriel.