“Tracking Jesuit Successes and Failures in Hungary and Transylvania, 1640-1750″ Seminar and Lecture

“Mission 'Mostly' Accomplished: Tracking Jesuit Successes and Failures in Hungary and Transylvania, 1640-1750″ Introductory Seminar and Lecture, May 18/20, 2009. Wednesday’s lecture on Jesuit activity in the Danube basin in the 17th and 18th century, preceded by an introductory seminar on Monday, was presented by Paul Shore of Saint Louis University.

Shore began Monday’s discussion with a contextualization of his own work beyond his particular area of research, that is, beyond Central Europe. He identified three major phases of Jesuit activity (framed around establishment, suppression, restoration, and post-WWII period) in an effort to provide a broader framework of analysis for the issues discussed in his later lecture.

The seminar touched on several difficulties involved in writing about the Jesuits, with questions of identity at the center. One of the critical questions which concerns Shore’s research is: how did the Jesuit perception of their own activity differ from how others viewed it? How does one reconcile external, often very negative references to and descriptions of the Jesuits (involving conspiracy, torture, etc. - Dostoevsky’s later berating comes to mind) with what the Jesuits thought they were doing and with what really happened? Adding another dimension of complexity to this issue, Shore raised the question of what did the converts, among whom were Roma people and women, understand of the Jesuits and their mission?

Another point of interest, Shore noted, is the opposition between group push for control on the part of Jesuits (exemplified in ambitious statements like “One world is not enough”) and individual ambition. Shore tangentially noted that the conflict between individualism and obligations is one of the reasons behind the Jesuit crisis in the US.

All in all, the seminar provided an open-forum opportunity to discuss some methodology-related concerns, before diving into the more specific content of the lecture.