Abstract
Alonso de Sandoval’s missionary efforts to newly arrived African subjects in colonial Latin America revolved around recognition of a discrete set of sensorial experiences. Trained under a Jesuit logic informed by St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, Sandoval understood that bodily gestures indicated an interior experience with the divine—movements that emerged out of an inner serenity that catechumens were directed to heed as life’s organizing principle. My paper analyzes the sensory as a methodological category to understand the unison that occurred between Jesuit actors and African neophytes. Beyond gesture and revelation as a shared space, sensorial events allowed Sandoval to inscribe Africans into the historical record, although that inclusion, as a result of historical process, placed Africans and Europeans into differentiated racialized categories. In sum, I trace the ways in which inner experiences realized through the imagination, enlightened thought, and movement, affirmed both celestial and temporal realities.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Religious Commonalities and Differences
KEYWORDS
Jesuits, Spirituality, Commonality, Difference
