Space and Conversion in Global Perspective

Space and Conversion in Global Perspective examines experiences of conversion as they intersect with physical location, mobility, and interiority. The volume’s innovative approach is global and encompasses multiple religious traditions. Conversion emerges as a powerful force in early modern globalization.

In thirteen essays, the book ranges from the urban settings of Granada and Cuzco to mission stations in Latin America and South India; from villages in Ottoman Palestine and Middle-Volga Russia to Italian hospitals and city squares; and from Atlantic slave ships to the inner life of a Muslim turned Jesuit. Drawing on extensive archival and iconographic materials, this collection invites scholars to rethink conversion in light of the spatial turn.

Contributors are: Paolo Aranha, Emanuele Colombo, Irene Fosi, Mercedes García-Arenal, Agnieszka Jagodzińska, Aliocha Maldavsky, Giuseppe Marcocci, Susana Bastos Mateus, Adriano Prosperi, Gabriela Ramos, Rocco Sacconaghi, Felicita Tramontana, Guillermo Wilde, and Oxana Zemtsova.

Giuseppe Marcocci, Ph.D. (2008), Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, is Assistant Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Tuscia. He has published widely on the Portuguese world, including L’invenzione di un impero: Politica e cultura nel mondo portoghese, 1450-1600 (Carocci, 2011).

Wietse de Boer, Ph.D. (1995), is Professor of History at Miami University (Ohio). His publications are focused on the Italian Counter-Reformation, most recently Religion and the Senses in Early Modern Europe (Intersections 26, 2013), co-edited with Christine Göttler.

Aliocha Maldavsky, Ph.D. (2000), is Assistant Professor at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. She has published Vocaciones inciertas. Misión y misioneros en la provincia jesuita del Perú en los siglos XVI y XVII (CSIC-IFEA-Universidad Ruiz de Montoya, 2012).

Ilaria Pavan, Ph.D. (2003), Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, is Assistant Professor of Late Modern History. She has published monographs, and many articles on Italian Jewish History in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.