Global Visions: Faith and Knowledge in the Early Modern World

The early modern world saw Catholicism transform itself into a global faith. Missionaries traveled with expanding Portuguese, Spanish, French empires, and beyond to translate their message of salvation into every culture possible from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy to the Japanese shogunate. No group was more instrumental in this regard than the Jesuits. Between 1534 and its suppression by the pope in 1773, the Society of Jesus grew from seven founding members to several thousand worldwide. As evangelizers they operated at boundaries of political, cultural, and metaphysical conflict. As global observers they became astronomers, linguists, ethnographers, historians, and mapmakers. We will critically examine Jesuit strategies to expand their religious network across every inhabitable continent, as well as the distinctive range of reactions from host societies. The extraordinary range of mission fields challenges us with issues of political and cultural conflict, integration, and appropriation. What did it mean to globalize religion in this era? How did missionaries facilitate and maneuver societal confrontation, and how did this conflict shape lasting knowledge and faith?