Samuel Ödmann : svensk 1700-talsöversättare med globala perspektiv

This essay discusses aspects of Samuel Ödmann's (1750-1829) translations/editions of about forty travel narratives. Ödmann was a Linnean by affection, professor at Upsala University, theologian, writer of hymns, and armchair traveller stuck to his sick bed for four decades. Ödmann's production has a global reach: he translated among others Jacob Cook, William Bligh, Mungo Park, Robert Norris, John White, and John Gabriel Stedman, and took a special interest in Africa. I focus on his translational and colonial methods of acculturalization and his ways of popularizing his source texts through acts of paraphrasing and editing