French 17 FRENCH 17

2009 Number 57

PART III: PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND RELIGION

AÏT-TOUATI, FRÉDÉRIQUE. “La mesure du ciel : la correspondance de Chapelain et Huygens.” EF 45.2 (2009), 83—97.

Examines the correspondence between the mathematician and astronomer Christiaan Huygens and the poet Jean Chapelain, particularly concerning Saturn’s ring, as each tries to convince others of his understanding of the universe as revealed by his respective field.

BARBICHE, BERNARD. Bulla, Legatus, Nuntius: Études de diplomatique et de diplomatie pontificales (XIIIe—XVIIIe siècle). Mémoires et documents de l’École des Chartes 85. Paris: École des Chartes, 2007.

Review: C. Shaw in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 868—870: These twenty-five articles by B., some co-authored with Ségolène de Dainville-Barbiche, furnish valuable meticulous analyses of materials derived from correspondence, papal documents in French archives and elsewhere. They shed light on “the revival of French influences at the papal court . . . personnel of the papal chancery and papal diplomatic missions to France and the technical aspects of their powers” (869—870). Index.

BAXTER, CAROL. “Women, Religious Conviction and the Subversive Use of Power.” SCFS, 31.2 (2009), 111—121.

Examines how the Ursuline and Visitandine communities sought to play an active role outside the cloister, particularly in their role as spiritual directors “to women in their local communities, to clerics and to prominent courtiers.” Argues that “by exercising subversive power clandestinely, they succeeded in wielding significant influence, even over doctrinal matters.” The contrast with the overt subversive challenges of both Madame Guyon and the Port-Royal nuns is explored.

BELGRADO, ANNA MINERBI. Sulla crisi della teologia filosofica nel Seicento. Pierre Jurieu e dintorni. Milano: Franco Angeli, 2008.

Review: A. Dufour in BHR 71.1 (2009), 225—27: “Le livre est centré sur les efforts quasi désespérés de Pierre Jurieu pour défendre l’orthodoxie réformée contre les théologiens protestants trop audacieux, ceux que l’on qualifiait alors de ‘sociniens,’ voire de ‘libertins.’”

BELIN, CHRISTIAN, ed. La Méditation au XVIIe siècle: Rhétorique, art, spiritualité. Colloques, congrès et conférences sur le Classicisme. Paris: Champion, 2006.

Review: A. Szabari in Ren Q 61.1 (2008): 191—193. This collection includes papers from a conference held in Montpellier in 2000 and attests to the richness and variety of practices of meditation. Scholars will appreciate several analyses: on texts of Bossuet and Fénelon (polemical aspects), Descartes and Malebranche (philosophical aspects), among others. Multiple genres are explored in literature and the arts. Meditation as a rhetorical topos is never lost sight of in this volume which offers “a rich array of materials for anyone interested in the conjunction of rhetoric, literature, arts, and spirituality in the Seventeenth Century” (192). S. would have appreciated clues “as to why this boom of meditative practices immediately precedes the eclipse of interest in this form of spirituality that occurs in the eighteenth century” (192).

BONARDEL, FRANÇOISE. Philosopher par le feu. Anthologie de textes alchimiques. Paris : Almora, 2009.

Review : D. Goy-Blanquet in QL 987 (du 1er au 15 mars 2009), 19 : Il s’agit d’une réédition, le “Points” Seuil étant épuisé depuis quelques années. “Cette anthologie est une mine d’or, hélas difficilement exploitable faute d’un éditeur sérieux. Elle offre un petit glossaire et un index des noms propres, mais pas de bibliographie, ni de liste des œuvres citées. Priorité est donnée aux textes, c’est normal, mais d’où viennent-ils, quels manuscrits, quelles éditions, la plupart des extraits, souvent de seconde main, ne le disent pas. Les pépites sont livrées en vrac, avec des références minimales, parfois erronées. [. . .] Une solide introduction nous le rappelle, cet ‘art foncièrement absurde’ aux dires de Burckhardt a constamment croisé la science aux origines de la chimie moderne, et rayonné sur l’histoire des cultures et des idées.”

BRAUN, GUIDO and SUSANNE LACHENICHT, eds. Hugenotten und deutsche Territorialstaaten. Immigrationspolitik und Integrationsprozesse. Les États allemands et les huguenots. Politique d’immigration et processus d’intégration. Pariser Historische Studien, Bd. 82. München: Oldenbourg, 2007.

Review: P. Fuchs in HZ 286.3 (2008): 724—726. This collection of 8 French and 7 German essays results from the October 7, 2005 Colloque which took place at the German Historical Institute in Paris. Concentrating on the plight of the Huguenots who fled France after Louis XIV’s Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and focusing on the German states and the process of integration, the essays take up subjects such as linguistic acculturation, identity, mémoires of the refugees and the Huguenots as artisans of the Enlightenment. Myriam Yardeni, “die grande dame der Hugenotten Forschung” (12) is responsible for the summing up of the volume’s contributions.

CARLINO, ANDREA and ALEXANDRE WENGER, eds. Littérature et médecine. Approches et perspectives (XVIe—XIXe siècles). “Recherches et rencontres” vol. 24. Genève: Droz, 2007.

Review: G. Bosco in S Fr 156 (2008): 716. Welcome collection of articles updates the state of research at the intersection of literature and medicine since George S. Rousseau’s 1981 work. C.’s and W.’s edited volume brings together the Acts of the October 2005 Geneva Colloquium focusing on mutual influences of the two disciplines and cultures. This volume, in hommage of Jean Starobinski, is organized in sections on “La Littérarité des texts médicaux,” “Les Maladies (et mort) des gens de lettres,” “Les doctrines médicales et la textualité,” and “Les Mises en récit de la maladie.”

CARR, THOMAS M., JR., ed. The Cloister and the World: Early Modern Convent Voices. Studies in Early Modern France 11. Charlottesville, VA: Rookwood Press, 2007.

Review: M. Sweetser in FR 82 (2009), 630—31: An impressive volume which brings out the important work of religious women in carrying out the objectives of the Catholic Reformation. The collection gives a good overview of how women in the various religious orders tended to write, and discusses intriguing examples such as Jeanne de Cambry’s Traité de la Réforme du Mariage. An excellent introduction by Thomas Carr, Jr. gives a helpful description of scholarship in the field; Carr also includes a bibliography of religious women’s writing. Highly praised by the reviewer.
Review: Anon. in FMLS 44 (2008): 90—91: Praiseworthy edited volume of eleven articles on the important topic of “the writings and documentary vestiges of convent life in pre-Revolutionary France” (90). Serving as a collection of well-documented and engaging investigations, the work offers perspectives of both literary and historical nature and “may also serve as an illustrative introduction to a significant corpus of women’s writings” (90). A variety of genres are represented (including marriage manuals!) and the arrangement is chronological. Includes an extensive bibliography, an état présent of research on convent writings and indices.

CARR, THOMAS M., JR. Voix des abbesses du Grand Siècle: La Prédication au féminin à Port-Royal: Context rhétorique et Dossier. Biblio 17, vol. 164. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2006.

Review: C. F. Klaus in Ren Q 61.2 (2008): 565—566. Praiseworthy on several accounts, the reviewer declares that “this book will be welcomed not only by scholars of Port-Royal but by anyone with an interest in the history of absolutist France, monasticism, women’s voices or rhetoric” (566). C. focuses on sisters Angélique and Agnès of the Arnauld family and their nièce Angélique de Saint-Jean and has collected and examined “some of the most elusive of texts, namely the written record of these eloquent abbesses’ spoken words” (565). After setting the stage with a discussion of women’s preaching in this period and an examination of Port-Royal and its abbesses, C. provides an important collection of texts, organized thematically. His choice of texts and analyses illuminate the community building of the abbesses which emphasized the theology of grace; he underscores the importance of their preaching during significant periods of serious conflict.

CARRIERO, JOHN. Between two worlds: a reading of Descartes’s Meditations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.

Review: M. Bertman in CHOICE 46 (2009), 1710—11: Compares the Meditations to works by Thomas Aquinas. Carriero declines to discuss current scholarship on Descartes and goes about his task in problematic ways. “[H]as a poor sense of Descartes’ strategy in responding to increasing skepticism of metaphysics” (1710) and “does not much attend to Descartes’ contemporaries’ criticism of [the] Meditations” (1711). Not recommended by the reviewer.

CONTE, SOPHIE, ed. Nicolas Caussin: rhétorique et spiritualité à l’époque de Louis XIII. Actes du Colloque de Troyes, 16—17 septembre 2004. Berlin: Verlag, 2007.

Review: C. Mazouer in DSS 244 (2009), 556—558: Described as “un fort beau volume,” the reviewer finds a study of Louis XIII’s confessor an essential addition to scholarship on the period and he finds the organization of papers and introduction by Conte to be exemplary.

COUSSON, AGNÈS. “Les tentations de la correspondance: l’exemple d’Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly.” DSS 244 (2009), 493—509.

“Religieuse renommée pour ses vertus spirituelles et une austérité jugée excessive, rien ne laisse supposer qu’Angélique de Saint-Jean succombe à une tentation quelconque, surtout pas à celles de la communication, contre lesquelles l’éducation du couvent met en garde. Elle se distingue pourtant de ses compagnes, dont les correspondances nous sont parvenues, par une difficulté plus nette à maîtriser sa plume et une propension à écrire à laquelle sa culture et ses talents littéraires ne sont pas étrangers. Des écarts paraissent dans ses lettres, infimes certes, mais révélateurs des risques inhérents à l’acte de correspondre, de la difficulté de faire coïncider le permis et le possible. À quelles tentations cède-t-elle et pourquoi? Comment réagit-elle dans les cas où elle en a conscience? Ces questions, qui ne visent pas à établir de jugement de valeur, permettront d’examiner sa relation effective avec la correspondance et les effets de celle-ci sur son intériorité.”

DESCOTES, DOMINIQUE, ed. Pascal, auteur spiritual. Colloques, congrès et conferences sur le Classicisme 9. Paris: Champion, 2009.

Review: S. Natan in FR 82 (2008), 390: A volume which brings together papers from three recent conferences on Pascal and which attempts to elucidate Pascal’s theological and spiritual writings, texts less well known than his Pensées and Lettres provinciales. The reviewer finds the collection on the whole disappointing and would have liked to have seen more attention given to Pascal’s Ecrits sur la grâce. He does, however, admire individual papers within the collection.

DINAN, SUSAN E. Women and Poor Relief in Seventeenth-Century France. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.

Review: L.R.N. Ashley in BHR 71.1 (2009), 144: “This book is actually a history of the Daughters of Charity, a Roman Catholic order who [sic], that was not cloistered, out in the world in the service of the indigent and downtrodden. It is also part of the history of the poor, the history of the Counter-Reformation and what this author calls the ‘feminization’ of religion in modern France.”

DIPIERO, THOMAS. “Voltaire’s Parrot; or, How to Do Things with Birds.” SUBSTANCE 37 (2008), 341—63.

Though considerably focused on Voltaire, Dipiero turns to the 17th Century to begin his exploration of how philosophers of language used the example of birds. Dipiero notes how Descartes discussed birds’ mechanical (but unthinking) production of speech to underscore a human monopoly on reason. The article identifies examples involving birds which reiterate this view in the Grammaire générale et raisonnée and in the work of the mathmetician Bernard Lamy. However, Dipiero goes on to show Lamy’s divergence from Descartes, his perhaps unwitting suggestion that thought can emanate from non-human sources.

ENENKEL, KARL A.E. and PAUL J. SMITH, eds. Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts. 2 vols. Intersections Yearbook for Early Modern Studies 7. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Review: I. MacInnes in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 925—926: Judged somewhat unequal and frustrating for some undertheorization and underdevelopment as well as for its “few references to recent scholarship,” yet recommended for its overall “fine scholarship” (focusing on primary sources) and diversity. This wide-ranging volume is valuable for art historians, cultural and literary scholars as it contributes to the “still-emerging field of early modern animal studies” (926).

FERRARI, JEAN, MARGIT RUFFING, ROBERT THEIS and MATTHIAS VOLLET, eds. Kant et la France—Kant und Frankreich. Hildesheim: Olms, 2005. Europaea Memoria. Studien und Texte zur Geschichte der europäischen Ideen; Reihe I, 46.

Review: G. Schlüter in RF 120.4 (2008): 531—535. One of the numerous publications resulting from the 2004 world-wide Kant commemorations, the present meritorious volume includes over thirty essays from the 2004 congress held in Mainz, Dijon and Luxembourg. Although many essays examine connections relating to Kant’s reception or affinities with modern figures such as Péguy, the first part deals with Kant’s predecessors and parallels (objective reality and Descartes, Kant and Pascal “deux critiques de la raison,” or “Espèce et adaptation chez Kant et Buffon,” for example) (531).

GRÉGOIRE, VINCENT. “Mais comment peut-on être protestant en Nouvelle-France au dix-septième siècle?” SCFS, 31.1 (2009), 46—58.

Examines firstly the presence of Huguenots in Canada from 1632 to 1685 and their “conditions d’existence,” and secondly how they are represented in the annually published Relations des Jésuites.

GUENOUN, SOLANGE M. “Conversos, conversion et contours de « la nation juive » au XVIIe siècle.” PFSCL XXXVI, 70 (2009), 187—197.

Covers a range of issues including an overview of the position of Jews in early modern France and Amsterdam; the representation of Jews in Pascal and Racine; a synthesis on the MLA 2006 session devoted to “Jews, Judaism, Judéités;” and a commentary on debates in contemporary France concerning Judaism.

JAQUET, CHANTALTAMÁS PAVLOVITS(dir.). Les facultés de l’âme à l’âge classique. Paris : Publications de la Sorbonne, 2006.

Review : M.-F. Pellegrin in RPFE no4/2008, 484—485: “Sur une question traditionnelle autant que centrale de la philosophie classique, celle des facultés de l’âme, cet ouvrage collectif entend adopter un point de vue décalé : non pas décrire le XVIIe siècle comme celui du triomphe de la raison, mais comme ‘une époque de crise’ où s’élaborent de nouvelles compréhensions de l’esprit. [. . .] Cette perspective. . .évite en effet toute illusion rétrospective. Les grands rationalismes sont travaillés dans leur genèse comme dans leur fonctionnement par des difficultés importantes sur le rôle et l’équilibre de chacune des facultés de l’âme. [. . .] L’ouvrage s’organise selon ces trois notions [l’entendement, l’imagination et le jugement] et se compose d’interventions de très bon niveau.”

JULLIEN, VINCENT. Philosophie naturelle et géométrie au XVIIe siècle. Sciences, techniques et civilisations du Moyen Âge à l’aube des lumières 9. Paris: Champion, 2006.

Review: D. Des Chene in Ren Q 61.2 (2008): 640—642. Valuable collection of essays for historians, philosophers and students of Roberval. For the latter, J.’s work is considered essential. Innovations and frontiers are examined, as are differing methods and disagreements such as those between Descartes and Roberval. Index, illustrations, bibliography.

KAPLAN, BENJAMIN J. Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007.

Review: C.J. Nederman in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 942—944: Although N. has several reservations including K.’s “strict division between elite and popular practices of tolerance” and points out that evidence for cross-fertilization may be found in homilies and pamphlets, he praises K.’s “manifest accomplishment.” N. singles out as particularly valuable the study’s “nuanced and multi-layered approach,” the evidence K. has discovered in the “daily lives of all people who lived in religiously mixed communities” (8) and K.’s accessible writing itself.

KLUETING, HARM, ed. Irenik und Antikonfessionalismus im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Hildesheimer Forschungen, Bd. 2. Hildesheim: Olms, 2003.

Review: R Dürr in HZ 286.1 (2008): 201—204. Praiseworthy and wide-ranging confessionally and geographically, this collection of essays from a 2002 conference held in Hildesheim provides contributions from archivists, theologians and historians to the overarching subject. 17th C French scholars will appreciate Bruno Bernard’s essays “Jansenismus und Irenik.”

LAVOCAT, FRANÇOISE, PIERRE KAPITANIAK and MARIANNE CLOSSON, eds. Fictions du diable: Littérature et démonologie de saint Augustin à Leo Taxil. Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance 81. Geneva: Droz, 2007.

Review: H. Kallendorf in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 932—934: Praised as “a solid contribution to the study of demonology in the Renaissance and beyond.” Fiction and literature’s relation to treatises on demonology is examined. Sponsored both by a 2003 conference held at Paris—7 Denis Diderot and an interdisciplinary team under the auspices of the Ministère de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Supérieur, the volume is organized into sections focusing on “writing strategies of demonologists,” the “cross-fertilization of demonological treatises and literary texts” and “the contributions of demonology to the history of ideas” (933). Useful in itself and stimulating for future scholarship.
Review: H. Hotton in DSS 243 (2009), 376—378: “Ce recueil, par la quantité des pistes de recherche qu’il soulève et la richesse des perspectives d’analyse qu’il propose, permet de mesurer à quel point la démonologie n’est jamais circonstancielle ou marginale dans la culture de l’Ancien Régime. Bien au contraire, ses discours et ses représentations sont au cœur de l’activité intellectuelle et créatrice, glissant au fil des siècles vers les territoires de l’imaginaire et de la fiction, renouant par là les rapports complexes avec la littérature qui les constituent.”

MCHUGH, TIM. Hospital Politics in Seventeenth-Century France: The Crown, Urban Elites and the Poor. The History of Medicine in Context. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.

Review: K.A. Lynch in Ren Q 61.1 (2008): 205—207. Wide-ranging despite its modest length, the study is judged a “solid contribution to the history of poor relief, the history of French political development and early modern urban history” (207). “Highly readable, embracing the theoretical, distinguishing between Jansenist, Jesuit and secular approaches, and focusing on three case studies (in Paris, Montpellier and Nîmes), McH.’s volume argues convincingly that the crown had only an indirect role in the development of poor relief” (206).

MÉCHOULANES, ÉRIC. “Valeurs de vérité et formes publiques d’énonciation chez le « Secrétaire de Port-Royal » : l’impasse heureuse des Provinciales.” EF 45.2 (2009), 69—81.

Abstract: “À partir de la controverse entre jansénistes et jésuites . . . cet article cherche à comprendre le rapport entre vérité, formes de publication, institutions autorisantes et sujet d’énonciation où se négocient les calculs du commensurable et de l’incommensurable.”

MOREAU, PIERRE-FRANÇOIS(dir.). Les passions à l’âge classique (Théories et critiques des passions, II). Paris : PUF, 2006.

Review : J.-P. Richard in RPFE no4/2008, 485—486: “L’âge classique, cadre chronologique de l’enquête, s’oppose simplement à la période antique et médiévale à laquelle était consacré un premier volume : Descartes, Gracián, Pascal, Spinoza, Locke et Leibniz font naturellement l’objet de monographies (sous la plume respectivement de D. Kambouchner, E. Marquer, C. Talon-Hugon, P.-F. Moreau, J. Terrel et S. di Bella), mais elles comportent ou appellent aussi une lecture transversale : l’amour cartésien est-il l’antithèse de la charité pascalienne ? Quel rôle joue le thème du passionnel dans la théorie politique de Gracián, de Hobbes, de Spinoza ou de Locke ? [. . .] À la fois savant et praticable, ce dossier offre durablement un matériau à la réflexion.”

OLIER, JEAN-JACQUES. L’âme cristal: des attributs divins en nous, édité, présenté et annoté par Mariel Mazzocco. Paris: Le Seuil, 2008.

Review: Y. Rodier in DSS 244 (2009), 561—562: “La plupart des écrits de Jean-Jacques Olier, auteur pléthorique, sont restés méconnus, faute d’avoir été publiés, en raison de l’antimysticisme qui sévissait alors. Cet écrit mystique inédit fournit l’occasion de mieux connaître la pensée du fondateur du séminaire de Saint-Sulpice dont le mysticisme a parfois interpellé.”

ONFRAY, MICHEL. Les libertins baroques. Contre-histoire de la philosophie, Tome 3. Paris : Le Livre de Poche, 2009.

Review : E. Pieiller in QL 988 (du 16 au 31 mars 2009), 27 : Onfray veut rendre leur place et leur rôle aux courants de pensée occultés délibérément par l’historiographie et l’enseignement dominants. La critique remarque, cependant, qu’“on peut néanmoins remarquer que les ‘Libertins’ n’en finissent pas d’être redécouverts, et que ce n’est plus tout à fait une nouveauté que s’insurger contre l’étiquetage du Grand Siècle comme ‘classique.’ [. . .] Allègres, légères, gentiment répétitives, ces longues notices permettront aux curieux de s’initier, même s’ils sont susceptibles de déplorer l’absence d’extraits conséquents.”

PARK, KATHARINE and LORRAINE DASTON, eds. The Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 3. Early Modern Science. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006.

Review: A Renner in HZ 286.1 (2008): 181—183. Welcome third volume of a larger project is both encyclopedic in its overview and elastic in its conception. Individual chapters may be read with profit in this collection which brings together 35 authors of both traditional and newer methodologies. Overarching organization is not biographical but contextual.

PIERRE, BENOIST. Le Père Joseph: l’éminence grise de Richelieu. Paris: Perrin, 2007.

Review: N. Le Roux in DSS 244 (2009), 564—565: The author delivers “un fort bel ouvrage consacré à une figure fameuse de l’époque baroque, François Le Clerc du Tremblay (1577—1638), en religion le P. Joseph de Paris. Une littérature considérable était déjà consacrée à ce personnage dont l’activité inlassable a stimulé les imaginations, mais Pierre a réussi à renouveler le sujet grâce au dépouillement de sources peu fréquentées, des actes notariés (pour la jeunesse), les lettres du P. Joseph aux calvairiennes d’Angers, les fonds des capucins de Paris, les correspondances diplomatiques et la littérature imprimée.”

REGUIG-NAYA, DELPHINE. Le Corps des idées—Pensées et poétiques du langage dans l’augustinisme de Port-Royal: Arnauld, Nicole, Pascal, Mme de La Fayette, Racine. Lumière Classique 70. Paris: Champion, 2007.

Review: S. Natan in FR 82 (2008), 391—92: A study which underscores the influence of Port-Royal on the reform of the French language, documenting this influence in a range of writers. For example, the chapter on La Fayette illustrates how the latter may have taken up Nicole’s ideas on language as a vehicle of lust. Despite being addressed to a specialist reader, the volume is generally of high quality.

STRAYER, BRIAN E. Suffering saints: Jansenists and convulsionnaires in France, 1640—1799.

Review: D. Baxter in CHOICE 46 (2009), 2195: “Provides an even balance between the 17th-century days of Port Royal and the tumultuous 18th century” (2195). Arranged both chronologically and topically. Strayer sees Jansenists not only as a “party of opposition” but as proponents of religious liberty. Praised by the reviewer.

STRIKER-METRAL, CHARLES-OLIVIER. Narcisse contrarié: l’amour-propre dans le discours moral en France (1650—1715). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007.

Review: F. Greiner in DSS 243 (2009), 369—372: Of this impressive and comprehensive study, the reviewer concludes that “[o]n sort inévitablement admiratif de ce beau livre qui réussit la performance de faire le tour d’un sujet complexe et touffu sans jamais rencontrer les écueils des approximations et des aperçus hâtifs, et sans jamais se perdre dans le labyrinthe des analyses ponctuelles. C’est là sans doute sa principale qualité: faire en sorte que le détail se marie toujours harmonieusement aux réflexions de portée générale, que les précisions monographiques convergent en définitive vers la constitution d’une véritable synthèse.”

TÓTH, ISTAVÁN GYÖRGY and HEINZ SCHILLING, eds. Religion and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400—1700. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006.

Review: E. Dursteler in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 947—950: Praiseworthy for its perspectives on the range and variety of exchanges and on the importance of religious identities as cultural markers” (1:3). Examines religious ritual and transmission, conflict and coexistence along geo-political boundaries.

TRUE, MICAH. “Maistre et Escolier: Amerindian Languages and Seventeenth-Century French Missionary Politics in the Jesuit Relations from New France.” SCFS, 31.1 (2009), 59—70.

Article examines “how seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries in the colony used Amerindian languages as an exclusionary principle to grant themselves access to New France’s spiritual riches in the pages of the published Jesuit Relations while simultaneously locking out potential rivals.”

VON GREYERZ, KASPAR. Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe 1500—1800. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

Review: E. Saak in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 945—947: Mixed review allows that at least for its cultural perspectives, Von G.’s work will serve future scholarship, yet indicates numerous critical omissions such “how individuals in early modern Europe defined religion for themselves” and references to ground-breaking work such as that by Norbert Elias, Mircea Eliade and Berndt Hamm. Organization is topical and chronological from the Reformation to the Enlightenment.

YARDENI, MYRIAM. “Perceptions de l’altérité juive en France au XVIIe siècle.” PFSCL XXXVI, 70 (2009), 199—207.

Examines a range of early modern perceptions of Jewish alterity under four headings: “L’altérité économique et utilitaire,” “Richard Simon et l’historisation de l’altérité juive,” “Du mépris et de la sainte horreur par exemple chez Bossuet à l’antisémitisme doux de Fénélon,” and “L’altérité juive et l’antisémitisme pamphlétaire.”

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