Through its missionary, pedagogical, and scientific accomplishments, the Society of Jesus-known as the Jesuits-became one of the first institutions with a truly “global” reach, in practice and intention. The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits offers a critical assessment of the Order, helping to chart new directions for research at a time when there is renewed interest in Jesuit studies. In particular, the Handbook examines their resilient dynamism and innovative spirit, grounded in Catholic theology and Christian spirituality, but also profoundly rooted in society and cultural institutions. It also explores Jesuit contributions to education, the arts, politics, and theology, among others.
The volume is organized in seven major sections, totaling forty articles, on the Order’s foundation and administration, the theological underpinnings of its activities, the Jesuit involvement with secular culture, missiology, the Order’s contributions to the arts and sciences, the suppression the Order endured in the 18th century, and finally, the restoration. The volume also looks at the way the Jesuit Order is changing, including becoming more non-European and ethnically diverse, with its members increasingly interested in engaging society in addition to traditional pastoral duties.
Ines G Županov is social /cultural historian of Catholic missions in South Asia and has also worked on other topics related to Portuguese empire. In addition to other two books, her latest monograph cowritten with Ângela Barreto Xavier is Catholic Orientalism; Portuguese Empire, Indian Knowledge, 16th-18th centuries (OUP, New Delhi, 2015). She coedited seven books and her articles are published in edited volumes and journals (Annales, Representations, Journal of Early Modern History, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, RES: Anthropology and Esthetics, etc.)
Introduction: Is One World Enough for the Jesuits?
Ines G Županov
I) Foundation and Administration
1. The “First Fathers” of the Society of Jesus
Pierre Antoine Fabre
2. Jesuit Organization and Legislation: Development and Implementation of a Normative Framework
Markus Friedrich
3. Jesuit Letters
Paul Nelles
II) Spirituality and Economy
4. Spiritual Exercises : Obedience, Conscience, Conquest
Silvia Mostaccio
5. Jesuit Interior Indias: Confession and Mapping of the Soul
Federico Palomo
6. Financing Jesuit Missions
Frederic Vermote
III) Education and Politics
7. Rise, Character, and Development of Jesuit Education: Teaching the World
Cristiano Casalini
8. Elites and the Constitution of Jesuit Identity
Patrick Goujon SJ
9. Political Theories and Jesuit Politics
Carlos Zeron
10. Jesuit Accommodation, Dissimulation, Mental Reservation
Stefania Tutino
11. Jesuit Missions Between the Papacy and the Iberian Crowns
Giuseppe Marcocci
IV) Global Missions
12. Jesuits, Conversos, and Alumbrados in the Iberian World
Stefania Pastore
13. The Jesuit English Mission
James E. Kelly
14. Jesuits in the Orthodox World
Paul Shore
15. Jesuits and Islam in the Early Modern Period
Emanuele Colombo
16. Jesuit Missionaries and Missions in the Iberian Colonial World
Rafael Gaune Corradi:
17. The Jesuits in Asia under the Portuguese padroado: India, China, and Japan (Sixteenth to Seventeenth Centuries)
Hélène Vu Thanh:
18. Jesuit Involvement in Africa, 1548-2017
Festo Mkenda SJ
V) Jesuit Aesthetics and Artistic Production
19. Jesuit Visual Culture in a Machine Age
Mia M. Mochizuki
20. Missionary Art and Architecture of the Society of Jesus between China and Brazil
Gauvin Alexander Bailey
21. Jesuit Illustrated Books
Walter S. Melion and Ralph Dekoninck
22. Latinitas Iesu: Neo-Latin Writing and the Literary-Emotional Communities of the Old Society of Jesus
Yasmin Haskell
23. Jesuit Theater
Ann-Sophie Gallo
24. Music in the Global Jesuit Mission, 1540-1773
David R. M. Irving
VI) Scientific Projects
25. Jesuit Mathematics
Romano Gatto
26. Astronomy, Cosmology and Jesuit Discipline, 1540-1758
Luís Miguel Carolino
27. Natural History in the Jesuit Missions
Miguel de Asúa
28. Jesuit Humanism and Indigenous-Language Philology in the Americas and Asia
Stuart M. McManus
29. The Historiography of the Society of Jesus
Paul Shore
30. Tracking Jesuit Psychologies: From Ubiquitous Discourse on the Soul to Institutionalized Discipline
Fernanda Alfieri
31. Jesuit Anthropology : Studying “Living Books”
Charlotte de Castelnau-l’Estoile
VII) Antijesuitism, Enlightenment and the Suppression
32. Antijesuitism in a Global Perspective:
Sabina Pavone
33. Jesuits in Enlightenment
Juan-Pau Rubiés
34. The Jesuit Rites Controversy
Claudia von Collani:
35. The Age of Suppression: From the Expulsions to the Restoration of the Society of Jesus (1759-1820)
Niccolò Guasti
VIII) Restoration
36. The Restoration of the Society of Jesus and the Vagaries of Writing
Martín M. Morales
37. A Bridge between the ‘Old’ and the ‘New’ Society: Writing the History of the Jesuit North- American Missions
Adina Ruiu
38. Jesuit Missions´ Past and the Idea of Return: Between History and Memory
Guillermo Wilde
39. A Jesuit Way of Being Global? Second Vatican Council, Inculturation, and Liberation Theology
Frédéric Gugelot
40. The Jesuits in the Twenty-First Century
Benoît Vermander SJ
Index
- Cohen, Thomas M. “The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits. Edited by Ines Županov. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Xxxvi 1,110 Pp. $175.00 Hardcover.” Church History 89, no. 3 (2020): 690–93. doi:10.1017/S0009640720001912.
- Ditchfield, Simon. “Getting beyond “Jesuit Thinking”. The “désenclavement” of Jesuit Studies Twenty Years on. Where We Are Now? A Consideration of”, Journal of Jesuit Studies 7, 2 (2020): 311-318, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00702010.
