Jjis_presentatio

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.” 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), Mia Mochizuki (Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley), 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), the book reviews editor—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. Published 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: JJIS will offer a mix of issues but 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.
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.

Source: http://www.jesuitica.be/assets/file/JJIS_presentatio.pdf