Mission and Frontiers: Perspectives on Early Modern Missionary Catholicism

National University of Ireland, Galway, 4^th and 5^th June, 2013

When, in 1893, Frederick Turner spoke of a phenomenon that ‰Û÷broke the bonds of custom, offered new experiences, [and] called out new institutions and activities‰۪, he was referring to the American frontier, but his description can be aptly applied to the missionary challenges the Catholic church encountered at the ‰Û÷frontiers‰۪ of mission in the early modern era.These were places and spaces with amorphous cultural and/or politico-geographical boundaries, unsettled or changing ‰Û÷certainties‰۪, and innovations stemming from the shifting realities of contact and diffusion which those involved in mission experienced within and without Europe.This symposium will seek to examine afresh the contours of mission in frontier zones, exploring the character and impact of missionary activity at the boundaries of Catholic culture and geography.

Possible topics for consideration include but arenot limited to:

åáDefining the meaning and applicability of frontier in relation to early modern Catholicism

åáExploring the meanings of ‰Û÷mission church‰۪ and ‰Û÷missionary Catholicism‰۪

åáCompetition and co-operation in the competition for souls

åáCohesion and difference, relating to gender, native ‰Û÷church‰۪, and inter-religion contacts

åáColonial religion and the ‰Û÷process‰۪ of imperial empire-making

åáCentre and periphery ‰ÛÒ authority and autonomy in missionary enterprises

Registration is FREE.If interested in attending the symposium and/or in offering a paper, please contact the event organisers:

Dr Alison Forrestal

Dr Sean Smith

alison.forrestal@nuigalway.ie

s.smith12@nuigalway.ie

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

11.00 Welcome and Opening Remarks, Alison Forrestal (NUIG)

11.15-13.00 Session 1

Luke Clossey (Simon Fraser University)

“Comparative Perspectives on Frontier and Mission in Early Modern Islam and Catholicism.”

Sean Smith (NUIG)

“Mortification in a frontier zone: survival versus salvation in Madagascar, 1648-1674.”

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.30 – Session 2:

Karin Velez (Macalester College)

“With wonderful lamentation”: Soliciting Tears on Jesuit Frontiers in the Italian Marche, Huron and Moxos Missions, 1560-1760.”

Thierry Issartel (Lyc̩e Louis-Barthou, Pau)

“At a corner of the Kingdom…” The Pyr̩n̩es: missions across a religious border in tension (16^th and 17^th centuries).”

15.30-15.45 Coffee

15.45- 17.15- Session 3

Andrew Redden (University of Liverpool)

“Not So Good Shepherds?: Reluctant Jesuit Martyrs on the c.17^th Chilean Frontier.”

Gauvin Bailey (Queen’s University)

“Missionaries and Global Artistic Exchange in Catholic America 1520-1650: Spanish America, Brazil, and Nouvelle-France.”

19.00 Conference Dinner

Wednesday, 5 June 2013

10.00-11.30 – Session 4:

Megan Armstrong (McMaster University)

“Catholic Frontier or Homeland? The Custody of the Holy land as a Site of Missionary Competition, 1600-1700.”

Andrew McCormick (l’Institut national des langues et civilisation orientale) “Pierre-Fran̤ois Viguier, the Congregation of the Mission and the Gallican conquest of the Levant.”

Coffee 11.30-11.45

11.45 – 13.00 – Session 5

John McCafferty (UCD)

“Apostolical Missioner: Nicholas Archbold, Capuchin (d. 1645).”

Margaret Brennan (University of Illinois)

“Seducers come from Hell”? Paul Harris’s Polemic against Regular Missionary Privilege in Post-Tridentine Ireland.”

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.15- Session 6

Felicia Rosu (Leiden University)

“Helping Transylvania: Jesuit missions in late 16th-century Eastern Europe.”

Tadhg O’Hannrachain (UCD)

“Nullum aliud emolumentum quaerere quam salutem animarum”? Catholic Missionary activity in the Turkish Balkans in the early seventeenth century.”

15.15-15.30 Coffee

15.30- 16.30 Session 7

Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Penn State University)

“Missionary Frontiers: A Comparison of Colonial Latin America and Portuguese Asia in the early modern era.”