Journal of Jesuit Interdisciplinary Studies
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
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Journal of Jesuit Interdisciplinary Studies:
Modernity through the prism of Jesuit history
Professor Paul Grendler wrote recently that "When I look at all the new
articles and books that the Jesuitica Project lists every week, I
suspect that there is enough scholarship and interest in the history of
the Society of Jesus and individual Jesuits to fill a new journal. I am
particularly impressed with the amount of new scholarship appearing in
English. There is a climate of interest and acceptance for scholarship
on the Jesuits in the English-speaking world that did not exist thirty
to fifty years ago. When I obtained my Ph.D. in 1964 studying the
Jesuits, or the Catholic Church generally, in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries was not the path to rising in the historical
profession in the USA and Canada.”
Indeed, Professor John W. O’Malley S.J. wrote in a front-page article of
America entitled "Jesuit History: A New Hot Topic”: "Historians are a
cautious lot and do not use the word revolution lightly. But that is the
right word to describe what has been happening in the study of the
history of the Society of Jesus. The scene is so different now from what
it was as recently as a dozen years ago that it is hardly recognizable.
All at once the Jesuits have become a hot topic—indeed, one of the
hottest—in the field of early modern history. […] Now the most
prestigious university presses—Princeton, Harvard, Stanford and Toronto,
for example—also publish on Jesuit history, a venture almost unheard of
before. […] The Jesuits are in vogue.”
I and the colleagues I have recruited to serve on the JJIS
multi-disciplinary editorial board — including accomplished scholars of
Jesuit history and experienced journal editors, such as James Bernauer
S.J. (Boston College), Jeffrey Chipps Smith (University of Texas at
Austin), Emanuele Colombo (DePaul University), Bernard Beprez
(Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven), Paul Grendler (University of Toronto,
emeritus), Yasmin Haskell (University of Western Australia), Ronnie
Po-Chia Hsia (Penn State University), Jeffrey Klaiber S.J. (Pontifical
Catholic University of Peru), Thomas McCoog S.J. (Fordham University),
Sabina Pavone (Università degli Studi di Macerata), Pilar Ryan (United
States Military Academy), Moshe Sluhovsky (The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem), and Jonathan Wright (Durham University) — wish to take
advantage of this historic revolution in Jesuit scholarship and a
climate of acceptance for it and launch in 2014, the bicentennial of the
Jesuit Restoration, a new periodical: Journal of Jesuit
Interdisciplinary Studies: Modernity through the prism of Jesuit
history.
1. Mission statement. Jesuit history is a wonderful prism through which
to look at many interdisciplinary aspects of modern global history,
whether through explicitly comparative studies, or by the grouping of
studies around a given topical, chronological, or geographic focus.
Jesuit history is the focus of JJIS but we welcome tangential
contributions. The very best thing about Jesuit history is that it
intersects with so many other important topics from the Renaissance and
Reformations to the Scientific Revolution to the Enlightenment to
Colonialism to Imperialism to Slavery to Anti-Modernism to Fascism, etc.
It also engages with a staggering array of disciplines: art history,
theology, literary studies, the history of science, international law,
military history, performing arts, and many others. Because scholarship
on Jesuit history has recently become too abundant to be easily
encompassed, JJIS aims at helping scholars in being better oriented in
this rapidly growing field of studies. On the other hand, JJIS will
target those areas of scholarship on Jesuit history in its broader
context that have been lamentably neglected.
2. Format. Both in print and online. Produced by Brill Academic
Publishers.
3. Frequency. Starting with two issues per year for the first two years
(2014-15); aiming at four issues per year, starting in 2016. Each issue
will have on average 120 pages (ca. 48,000 words; 400 per page).
4. Language. We shall publish in the English language only; however, we
shall also invite contributions of important but hard to find articles
in other languages, which we shall encourage to be translated. Thus JJIS
will help bringing together a global scholarly community, without
discriminating against non-Western or Slavic languages.
5. Content: We are keen to produce thematic issues, which will highlight
the interdisciplinary nature of the journal. We shall commission or
invite articles two years in advance to secure the high quality of the
journal. Each article will be rigorously and confidentially
peer-reviewed by two reviewers.
JJIS will include a strong book reviews section. I have appointed a
dedicated book review editor, Dr. Jonathan Wright. JJIS will specialize
in publishing English language reviews of both Anglophone and foreign
language books as well as books based largely on Jesuit archival or
bibliographical resources. We are also keen to solicit review essays and
debates on particularly interesting books. We shall also print short
notices of newly published books, which will help keep track of the most
recent scholarship. In other words, for scholars interested in Jesuit
history and related fields, JJIS will be the most authoritative,
up-to-date, and accessible journal to consult.
6. Affiliation. We are in the process of discerning what academic
institution we would like to be associated with, which is not—at any
rate—a conditio sine qua non to launch this journal.
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