“The Spice of Faith: Jesuits and the Arts and Emotions of ‘Accommodation'”, Professor Yasmin Haskell (Cassamarca Foundation Chair of Latin Humanism at The University of Western Australia; Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: 1100-1800)

Date: Thursday 12 November 2015
Time: 6:15pm – 7:15pm
Venue: Art Gallery of Western Australia Theatrette, Perth WA
Cost: Event is free but RSVP required

The Society of Jesus, a Catholic Reformation order founded in the 16th century by Ignatius of Loyola, earned a formidable and paradoxical reputation in the early modern period. The Pope’s ‘crack troops’ were deployed from Paris to Paraguay to Peking, converting souls, educating the élites of Catholic Europe and her overseas colonies, conducting diplomatic business and scientific research, producing music and drama, poems and pyrotechnics, art and architecture. Jesuits were active in mission fields through Asia, Africa and the Americas from the 16th -18th centuries and wrote extensively about their experiences. These were mined, in turn, by their brothers in Europe for poems, dramas, and other literature for education and edification. Jesuits were famous for their efforts to cross language barriers (writing dictionaries, translating, acting as diplomats and brokers) and for their chameleon-like ability to adapt to local circumstances. Some, like the Italian Matteo Ricci in China, seem to have enjoyed close friendships with new Christians from cultures radically different from their own.To what extent did early modern Jesuits evince what we might call ‘transcultural empathy’ for the non- European peoples they encountered in the overseas missions?

Was there anything in the Jesuits’ training and ‘way of proceeding’ that rendered them especially receptive to different cultures, or that encouraged them to see through others’ eyes? And what emotional work did ‘exotic’ arts, crafts, and other cultural products – some beautiful examples are on display in the ‘Treasure Ships’ exhibition – perform as tools for conversion and in fortifying Jesuits’ sense of their global, corporate identity?

Professor Yasmin Haskell, FAHA, is Cassamarca Foundation Chair of Latin Humanism at The University of Western Australia and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions: 1100-1800, where she leads team projects on ‘Jesuit Emotions’ and ‘Passions for Learning’. Her research interests span poetry and science, history of the Jesuits, and history of emotions and psychiatry.

Before coming to Perth, Yasmin was a research fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge (1995-2002). She has also been a visiting fellow at Christ Church and All Souls Colleges, Oxford, and a visiting fellow commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge.