The past two decades have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of scholarly interest in the phenomenon of "Jesuit science". What has attracted contemporary historians and sociologists of science to the scientific activities undertaken by the members of a Catholic religious order that was founded in the sixteenth century for the salvation of souls? Thanks to its organizational complexity, the global breadth and longevity of its schools and missions, and the richness of its historical record, the Society of Jesus presents a case study of great potential for rethinking the interplay between social values (especially religious beliefs), and scientific knowledge and practice. Of particular interest in this regard is the Jesuit mission in late imperial China (seventeenth-eighteenth centuries). Its significant scientific component has been studied extensively by scholars interested in how Jesuit expertise with natural phenomena became bound up with goals of religious conversion, and in how scientific knowledge and practice were transmitted from early modern Europe to late imperial China. Current scholarship on Jesuit science treats the Society of Jesus as a monolithic institution, which apparently enjoyed a level of organizational efficiency, cohesion, and ideological discipline that few, if any, scientific communities possess. The methodology underlying this scholarship takes for granted the top-down influence of corporate "policies" on participants in specific social institutions. Yet Jesuit missionaries in late imperial China did not propagate a homogenous program of scientific work in China; nor did they speak with a unified voice in evaluating the history of Chinese science. The proposed project establishes a new analytical framework for understanding the culture of French Jesuit science in late imperial China, one focused on issues of scientific identity, genres of scientific writing, and histories of non-Western science written from European perspectives. Perched precariously on the frontlines of the early modern European encounter with the non-European world, Jesuit missionaries made use of their scientific expertise to appeal to many audiences, from Chinese and Manchu colleagues in the imperial Bureau of Astronomy, and to the ruling emperor, to fellow Jesuits, ecclesiastical superiors, and members of early modern European scientific societies (the Royal Society of London, the Paris Academie Royale des Sciences, and the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg). Jesuit scientific practitioners in China pursued a correspondingly wide range of interests, from observations of lunar eclipses, magnetic variation, and Jupiter's occultations of its moons, to an imperially-sponsored map of the Celestial Empire and some of the earliest sustained studies of the Chinese scientific tradition by European scholars. The varied and sometimes inconsistent ways in which Jesuit missionaries approached these topics only make sense when evaluated in light of the unique cultural context occupied by these brokers between East and West. The project will contribute significantly to how historians of early modern European science understand the import of the Jesuit case, as well as to how historians of early modern Europe understand the role played by Catholic savant culture in the European Enlightenment. More broadly, the project's reevaluation of the Jesuit episode in late imperial China provides a model for a historically sensitive and pedagogically effective approach to analyzing cross-cultural scientific circulation, the social significance of scientific activity, and the complexities involved in appraising the relationship between science and religion.
