1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910786880003321

Autore

Molina J. Michelle

Titolo

To overcome oneself [[electronic resource] ] : the Jesuit ethic and spirit of global expansion, 1520-1767 / / J. Michelle Molina

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, Calif., : University of California Press, c2013

ISBN

0-520-95504-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (293 p.)

Disciplina

271/.53

Soggetti

Spiritual exercises

Self - Religious aspects - Christianity

Self (Philosophy)

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: "To Overcome Oneself" -- 1. The Jesuit Spiritual Exercises: Conquest of the Self, Conquest of the World -- 2. Women's Devotional Labor -- 3. Consolation Philosophy -- 4. Evangelization and Consolation: Or, Philosophy in the Mission Field -- 5. Facts: Houses, Books, and Other Remains -- 6. Colonial Indifference? Another Approach to the Colonial Other -- 7. A Heart-Shaped World -- Conclusion: Re-membering the Past -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

To Overcome Oneself offers a novel retelling of the emergence of the Western concept of "modern self," demonstrating how the struggle to forge a self was enmeshed in early modern Catholic missionary expansion. Examining the practices of Catholics in Europe and New Spain from the 1520's through the 1760's, the book treats Jesuit techniques of self-formation, namely spiritual exercises and confessional practices, and the relationships between spiritual directors and their subjects. Catholics on both sides of the Atlantic were folded into a dynamic that shaped new concepts of self and, in the process, fueled the global Catholic missionary movement. Molina historicizes Jesuit meditation and narrative self-reflection as modes of self-formation that would ultimately contribute to a new understanding of religion as something private and personal, thereby overturning long-



held concepts of personhood, time, space, and social reality. To Overcome Oneself demonstrates that it was through embodied processes that humans have come to experience themselves as split into mind and body. Notwithstanding the self-congratulatory role assigned to "consciousness" in the Western intellectual tradition, early moderns did not think themselves into thinking selves. Rather, "the self" was forged from embodied efforts to transcend self. Yet despite a discourse that situates self as interior, the actual fuel for continued self-transformation required an object-cum-subject-someone else to transform. Two constant questions throughout the book are: Why does the effort to know and transcend self require so many others? And what can we learn about the inherent intersubjectivity of missionary colonialism?