The Portal to Jesuit Studies

A three-day workshop begins October 2 at the Istituto Sangalli in Florence. The event features a number of scholars from around the world to present on the topic “Entangled Knowledges: Education and Culture in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (XIIIth-XIXth C).”

This is the fifth international workshop hosted by the Istituto Sangalli, allowing emerging scholars the opportunity to discuss their topics and research with accomplished scholars from Italy and abroad. A full program appears below and can be found online.

2nd October 2019

15.00

Saluti

— On. Flavia Piccoli Nardelli, Commissione Cultura, Camera dei Deputati

— Alessandro Martini, Assessore ai rapporti con le confessioni religiose, Comune di Firenze

— Massimo Carlo Giannini, Università degli studi di Teramo – Istituto Sangalli

15.30

Introduzione

— Maurizio Sangalli, Università per stranieri di Siena – Istituto Sangalli

Learning and its Institutions in Late Medieval Cairo and Damascus (XIIIth-XVth centuries)

— Caterina Bori, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

L’arte italiana del rinascimento e l’ebraismo: cosa si vede, cosa si sa, cosa rimane da fare

— Giulio Busi, Freie Universität Berlin

Discussione e pausa caffè

«Ascoltatemi e l’anima vostra gusterà cibi succulenti»: l’introduzione del Seder Eliyyahu Zuta (1523) di Elia Capsali e l’influsso della retorica umanistica

— Francesca Valentina Diana, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna

Discussione

3rd October 2019

9.30

I Catechismi di Lutero e il progetto formativo della Riforma

— Fulvio Ferrario, Facoltà Valdese di Teologia, Roma

Handbooks for Clergy and their Editorial Success in Pre-Tridentine Church

— Antonio Gerace, Fondazione per le scienze religiose ‘Giovanni XXIII’, Bologna – Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Discussione e pausa caffè

Franciscan Sermons as a Tool of Education in the Upper Hungary (XVIIth-XVIIIth centuries)

— Ivana Labancová, Comenius University, Bratislava

Galileo’s Piarists. Famiano Michelini’s School of Mathematics between Roman Opposition and Scientific Revolution

— David Salomoni, Università degli studi Roma Tre

15.00

Early Modern Chinese-European Relations: Translating ‘Christian’ Culture in a Multi-Religious Context

— Eugenio Menegon, Boston University – Center for the Study of Asia

Picturing the Knowledge of Heaven and Earth in the Jesuit China Mission (XVIIth century)

— Han Dong, University of Warwick

Discussione e pausa caffè

Entangled Habits and Missionary Ordeals: Amor Proprio, Custom and Dress in Spanish Colonial Philippines (1581-1636)

— Maria Cecilia Aguilar Holt, Harvard University – Harvard Divinity School

«Lacking ships, I will reach those islands by swimming». A Renewed Desire for Japan in the Jesuit Petitions for the Indies (Italian Assistancy, 1690-1730 ca.)

— Elisa Frei, Boston College – Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies

Discussione

4th October 2019

9.30

Les sept portes du savoir: approches institutionnelles et approches individuelles de la formation des élites françaises du XVe au XVIIIe siècle

— Boris Noguès, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon

Lectio Orthodoxorum and Lectio Basilianorum: Reading Canons of the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic (Basilian) Monks in the Early Modern Eastern Europe

— Ivan Almes, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv

Discussione e pausa caffè

L’educazione femminile in Cina. Rappresentazioni e proposte di intervento in alcune fonti a stampa missionarie (1830-1860 ca.)

— Alice Boeri, Università degli studi di Padova – Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Educazione religiosa o religione educativa? Riferimenti teologici nell’assiologia pedagogica di Antonio Rosmini (1820-1850)— Paolo Bonafede, Università degli studi di Trento

Discussione e conclusione dei lavori

On October 1, 2019, the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies welcomes Liam Matthew Brockey of Michigan State University to deliver the Feore Family Lecture on Jesuit Studies. Brockey’s lecture is entitled “Comprehending the World: Jesuits, Language, and Translation in the Early Modern Period.” The event is free and open to the public. Those wishing to attend are asked to register online or contact the Institute (iajs@bc.edu).

The Feore Family Lecture Series seeks to bring the world’s preeminent scholars in the field of Jesuit Studies to Boston College for engagement with the University and the general public. The series also features the presentation of the George E. Ganss, S.J. Award, which recognizes a person’s significant scholarly contributions to the field of Jesuit Studies.

Brockey is an historian of Early Modern Europe and a specialist in the history of Roman Catholicism and the Society of Jesus. Educated at the University of Notre Dame and Brown University, he has written extensively on Jesuit missions in China, Japan, and India, as well as on the Portuguese empire. He is the author of two monographs, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724 and The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia, and many journal articles. Most recently he and Mónica Leal da Silva have published annotated translations of a selection of the sermons of António Vieira. Brockey has also served as the president of the American Catholic Historical Association and was elected to the Academia Portuguesa da História.

Scholars to have previously delivered the Feore Lecture are: Paul Grendler of the University of Toronto; John O’Malley, SJ, of Georgetown University; John Padberg, SJ, of St. Louis; and John McGreevy, of the University of Notre Dame.

Additional details are available online.

The Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies is pleased to announce the Fall 2019 schedule of Jesuit Studies Cafés. The season began with a presentation led by Liam Brockey, who also received the 2019 George E. Ganss, S.J., Award in Jesuit Studies.

The Jesuit Studies Cafés are informal discussions hosted by the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies. The events are free and open to the public, either to attend at the Institute’s library at Boston College or to join via videoconference. These cafés are unique opportunities to engage with some of the world’s preeminent scholars working on the history, spirituality, and educational heritage of the Society of Jesus. Summaries of the 2018-2019 events are available online here and here.

If you would like to attend a café via videoconference, please contact the Institute to register (iajs@bc.edu). You will receive information on how to access the online meeting space 24 hours before the discussion.

The Fall 2019 schedule follows below. Please contact the Institute with any questions or if you wish to join or lead a café in the future (iajs@bc.edu).

Jesuit Studies Cafés

Tuesday, October 1, 10:15am-11:00am Eastern time
“On the Frontiers of Mission History”
— Liam M. Brockey, Michigan State University

Over the past half century there has been a boom in mission studies, most of which have examined Jesuit endeavors around the early modern world. Unlike the mission history of times past, these studies have not primarily been produced by missionaries themselves. How has this change shifted mission history? Where is the field, newly and broadly conceived, heading? What new areas of research await discovery? Liam Brockey, the recipient of the 2019 George E. Ganss, SJ, Award in Jesuit Studies, will offer his answers to these questions and others at this café.

Thursday, October 31, 10:15am-11:00am Eastern time
“Tracking the Global Impact of Jesuit Education: Conimbricenses.org, A Free, Digital Platform for the History of Jesuit Philosophy and Theology in Coimbra”
— Mário Santiago de Carvalho, Universidade de Coimbra and Simone Guidi, Universidade de Coimbra 

Conimbricenses.org facilitates the exploration of the unique educational influence of the Coimbra Jesuit Aristotelian instruction that stretched from Portugal to Asia and South America. As the first digital project on the Coimbra Jesuit Aristotelian tradition, it publishes peer-reviewed encyclopedia entries and provides free, worldwide access to digitized versions of the most important documents related to the topic. This café explores the history of this important tradition as well as the different technical tools the platform uses to promote its future scholarly inquiry.

Wednesday, November 20, 10:15am-11:00am Eastern time
“The Book of Nature and The Prestige of Science: The Restored Society of Jesus in Portugal”
— Francisco Malta Romeiras, Universidade de Lisboa

Because of the civic government’s opposition, the Society of Jesus was not restored in Portugal until 1858. In his new book — Jesuits and the Book of Nature: Science and Education in Modern Portugal (Brill, 2019) — Francisco Malta Romeiras argues that the country’s restored Jesuits promoted an “alliance between religion and science,” both to continue their order’s tradition and to fight anti-clericalism and anti-Jesuitism. At this café, he will explain the successes and missteps of those efforts as well as their legacies for the histories of Portugal, the Catholic Church, and scientific inquiry.

Thursday, December 5, 10:15am-11:00am Eastern time
“Apostles of Empire: The Jesuits and New France”
— Bronwen McShea, Princeton University

Across the 17th and 18th centuries, more than 300 Jesuits served as missionaries in colonial New France, which stretched from eastern Canada and Maine to the Great Lakes region. Even as they spread Catholic doctrines and rituals in ways innovatively adapted to Native American linguistic and cultural forms, these missionaries were also proactive agents of an aspiring French-imperial state. At this café, Bronwen McShea provides a candid and revisionist assessment of the mission famously associated with Isaac Jogues and the other North American Martyrs, drawing from her new book Apostles of Empire (2019), the latest in the University of Nebraska Press series “France Overseas: Studies in Empire and Decolonization.”