Includes bibliographical references and index.

Acknowledgements -- List of Figures -- Abbreviations -- Dramatis Personae -- 1 Modus Procedendi : The Jesuit Return to China and the New “Mode of Proceeding” -- 1 Modus Procedendi : Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuit Way in China -- 2 Suppression and Restoration: China’s “New” Jesuit Mission -- 3 The Baroque Character of the Society’s Return to China -- 2 Si Perpetuo Peregrinari : The Jesuit Missions at Shanghai and Xianxian -- 1 Jesuit Shanghai: The Xuijiahui Mission -- 2 Jesuit Zhili: The Xianxian Mission -- 3 A Vortex of Artifice: Making a Baroque (and Western) China -- 3 Nuntii de Missionibus : The Lives and Letters of Four French Jesuits -- 1 Departures: France during the Nineteenth Century -- 2 Arrivals: China during the Nineteenth Century -- 3 Andlauer and Isoré: Martyrs of Wuyi -- 4 Mangin and Denn: Martyrs of Zhujiahe -- 5 Epistolary Hermeneutics: Interpreting China in Crisis -- 6 Nuntii de Missionibus : Last Letters at the Hour of Collapse -- 4 Sed Libera Nos a Malo : China’s Jesuit Stage of Martyrdom -- 1 Antecedents -- 2 Martyrs of the Altar: The Drama of Wuyi -- 3 Martyrs of the Siege: The Drama of Zhujiahe -- 4 The Tragedy of Zhili: Mise en Scène -- Entr’acte: History, Rome, a Fresco, and a Jesuit Play -- 5 Theatrum Mundi : Jesuit Theater and the Making of Saints -- 1 Boxer Violence and the Jesuit Stage -- 2 Staging a Christian China: Pierre-Xavier Mertens’ Drama of the Zhujiahe Martyrs -- 3 The Making of Saints: Jesuit Agitprop from China to Baroque Rome -- 4 Conclusion: From the Western Enlightenment to An Enlightened China -- Coda -- Bibliography.

This book represents the first monograph study of Jesuit religious theater in China and its connections to the commemoration of the Society’s martyrs of the late Qing. It considers the Society’s efforts to rehabilitate the Western imagination of China and the Jesuit aim of stirring emotional responses to stage performances that inculcate Catholic and Western sensibilities. By connecting the religious underpinnings of the Spiritual Exercises to the sumptuous Baroque expressions of Jesuit drama performed on China’s stages, this important work explores an entirely new area of research that weaves together several modes of analysis – visual, cultural, and nationalistic.

English

Description based on print version record.