The Portal to Jesuit Studies

James Kelly, Sweeting Research Fellow in the History of Catholicism at Durham University, and Hannah Thomas, Special Collections Manager and Research Fellow at the Bar Convent in York, have edited a new monograph, Jesuit Intellectual and Physical Exchange between England and Mainland Europe, c. 1580-1789: ‘The World is our House?’

Part of the Jesuit Studies Book Series at Brill, this new publication offers 14 interdisciplinary essays written by an international group of scholars. According to Brill, the book explores the role of the Jesuits’ mission in England as well as its “wider impact within the Society, as well as early modern European Catholicism.” The essays try “to change perceptions of the English Mission as peripheral, bringing the archipelagic experience of Jesuits working in the British Isles in line with work on their European confreres and the broader global network of the Society of Jesus.”

An introduction is written by Thomas. The remainder of the book is divided into four sections. Those sections and their respective essays are:

Rediscovering the English Mission

“‘To wyn yow to heaven’: Edmund Campion’s Winning Words,” by Gerard Kilroy

“Edmund Campion’s Prague Homilies: The Concionale ex concionibus a R.P. Edmundo Campiano,” by Clarinda Calma

“The Most Catholic King and the ‘Hispanized Camelion’: Philip II and Robert Persons,” by Houliston Victor

The Jesuits and English Culture

“Jesuit Drama Crossing the Channel: Jakob Gretser and William Shakespeare’s Pericles and Timon of Athens,” by Sonja Fielitz

“Relics and Cultures of Commemoration in the English Jesuit College of St. Omers in the Spanish Netherlands,” by Janet Graffius

“Scheming Jesuits and Sound Doctrine?: The Influence of the Jesuits on English Catholic Music at Home and Abroad, c.1580–1640,” by Andrew Cichy

English Jesuit Influence in Mainland Europe

“‘Extravagant’ English Books at the Library of El Escorial and Jesuit Agency,” by Ana Sáez-Hidalgo

“Spoils of War?: The Edict of Restitution and Benefactions to the English Province of the Society of Jesus,” by Thomas M. McCoog

“Invisible Threads of Divine Providence: The British Links in the Polemical Theology of Martinus Szent-Ivany (1633–1705),” by Svorad Zavarský

“Probabilism, Pluralism, and Papalism: Jesuit Allegiance Politics in the British Atlantic and Continental Europe, 1644–50,” by Christopher P. Gillett

Pan-European Networks of Communication

“England in the Margin: Providence and Historiography in Pedro de Ribadeneyra’s Historia ecclesiastica del scisma del reyno de Inglaterra,” by Spencer J. Weinreich

“Spiritual Exercises and Spiritual Exercises: Ascetic Intellectual Exchange in the English Catholic Community, c.1600–1794,” by Hannah Thomas

“‘Established and putt in good order’: The Venerable English College, Rome, under Jesuit Administration, 1579–1685,” by Maurice Whitehead

“Jesuit News Networks and Catholic Identity: The Letters of John Thorpe to the English Carmelite Nuns at Lierre, 1769–89,” by James E. Kelly

More information is available at Brill: https://brill.com/abstract/title/36313

The Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies welcomes applications for its 2019-20 in-residence fellowships. The one- and two-semester appointments seek to facilitate the completion and/or publication of academic work related to the Society of Jesus. Applications are now welcomed from scholars in the fields of history, spirituality, and pedagogy, among others. The submission deadline is January 15, 2019.

The Institute offers two types of in-residence fellowships: Institute Fellowships, a year-long appointment (September-May), and Senior Research Fellowships, a semester-long appointment.

The Institute provides individual, furnished housing as part of both fellowships. An Institute Fellowship includes a stipend of $20,000, and the Senior Research Fellowship includes a stipend of $12,000. Additional support for research-related travel during the residency may be available.

Fellowships include personal office space at the Institute and access to the collections in the University’s libraries and those of the colleges and universities in the Boston consortium. Candidates are encouraged to consult the extensive listings of Jesuitica holdings at Boston College prior to submitting their applications. Preference will be given to applicants in the final stages of writing or revising substantive scholarly work.

While in residence at the Institute, fellows will make one presentation of their work each semester. They are encouraged to collaborate with the Institute’s initiatives and programming and with the Institute’s Research Scholars. They are also expected to engage with the wider academic community by attending events and meeting with the University’s faculty members and other visiting scholars. The fellowships are not academic appointments and have no teaching responsibilities.

More information and an application are available at the Institute’s website (bc.edu/iajs).

Two new essays are now available through Jesuit Historiography Online, an Open Access resource hosted by Brill.

The newest additions to Jesuit Historiography Online are:

• “The Dynamics of Anti-Jesuitism in the History of the Society of Jesus,” by Pierre-Antoine Fabre and José Eduardo Franco (link)

• “Between Religious Instruction and theatrum mundi: The Historiography of Jesuit Drama (Seventeenth to Twenty-First Centuries),” by Jost Eickmeyer (link)

The project will eventually consist of more than 70 scholarly essays that summarize the state of scholarship in the variety of fields in Jesuit Studies. The essays explore trends in Jesuit historiography and provide a nuanced, systematic, and in-depth analysis of what has been written—when, why, and by whom.

The full texts of the available essays are searchable through the Portal’s search engine. An interactive chart lists the essays and their authors: https://sites.bc.edu/jesuitportal-recovery/research/jesuit-historiography/

The Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies provides the necessary financial support so that the project is available in Open Access.