The Shelves of the Mission. Circulation of Books and Libraries in Jesuit Paraguay (18th Century)

FABIÁN R. VEGA

Hagen (virtual)

Workshop; Defining Missionary Knowledge in a Broad Perspective; 2020

FernUniversität

In 1767, King Charles III of Spain (1759-1788) expelled the Society of Jesus from all his dominions. Until then and since the 17th and 18th centuries, the members of this religious order ?the Jesuits? had promoted educational and missionary activities both in the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish colonies. They had also established large libraries in colleges, residences, and mission towns ?most of them located in the Spanish American borderlands. My current doctoral research deals with the circulation of books and libraries during the 18th century within the Guaraní missions ?the space that today corresponds to the borders between Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. For this presentation I will focus on the contents and the organization of the libraries, although my research concerns also other aspects such as the acquisition and circulation of texts, reading practices, and the marginalia found in missionary books in order to explore the specificity of missionary knowledge and the role of Indigenous languages.