Rhetorical Landscapes of the Jesuit Relations

A vast corpus of published letters written by various Jesuit missionaries to New France between 1632 and 1673, the Jesuit Relations are recognised by the historian, anthropologist, and theologian of missiology, as a corpus of published works that provide an essential perspective into the earliest days of Canada's both colonial and ecclesiastical history. This course introduces students to the Relations published between 1632 and 1650, and leads them in a detailed analysis of the particular Ignatian worldview that shaped its authors' rhetorical landscape. In doing so, they will be exposed to concrete examples of how, in the early modern period, Jesuits, their lay companions, and Amerindian Christian communities lived out Ignatian spirituality in the mission field, obtain an essential perspective on the Relations useful for their further study of Canadian ecclesiastical history, and advance their basic skills in examining primary historical sources.