Issued also, in microfilm form, as thesis, Columbia University. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-195).

Léonard Lessius was a Flemish Jesuit whose published works engaged in the most pressing economic, theological, and philosophical debates of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth-centuries. Highly-respected for both his profound intellect and his exemplary integrity and virtue, Lessius, also known as "The Prince of Philosophers" was venerated even in death. Despite his remarkable fame and influence in his own day, Lessius' philosophical contributions and legacy have been largely forgotten by modern historians. This striking lacuna in the historiography illuminates the narrow categories and concerns as well as the serious limitations of modern philosophy and the history of philosophy in particular. This report narrows in on one of these lost philosophical fields and treatises in particular, Lessius's study on diet and health, Hygiasticon (Antwerp, 1613). It uniquely, and quite literally, gets at the heart and soul of early modern philosophy: what is natural, what is the relationship between body, mind and soul, and what is necessary for health, wealth, spiritual- and self-improvement. / text

While Thwaites' Jesuit Relations have been extensively used by historians interested in the interactions between Native Americans and the French Jesuit- missionaries, they have not been used to examine the Jesuits' descriptions of the North American natural world. These natural world descriptions are examined to see what influence factors contributed to the form of their accounts. Using two recent journal articles five factors - value, religion, society, personal experience and education - were selected to provide the structure of this study and to understand the impact of these factors upon the Jesuit natural world descriptions. Environmental history works have been consulted to provide information of the Jesuit mentality formed by these factors. Two factors, value and personal experience, provide the greatest influence, with education and society providing a lesser influence. Surprisingly, the influence of religion does not often explicitly appear in the Jesuit accounts. / Department of History

An analysis of the discourse in the Jesuit Relations indicates that the Jesuits' representation of Huron and Montagnais Indians is informed by a colonial ideology. The Jesuits' attempt to identify Indians according to permanent customs and manners is compared to conventional ethnographic description and is shown to result in a reductive, essentializing discourse. In their elaboration of the category of 'savagery' Jesuits metaphorically equated Indians with wild animals. They then stressed the need for reclaiming the Indians' humanity through conversion to Christianity. The Jesuits' figuration of the spiritual realm as a territory to be subdued and conquered is discussed, and the language of conversion is revealed as a language of control and conquest. It is finally argued that Jesuit representations of Indians functioned as an instrument of colonial domination. The analysis points to the need for decolonization of textual and historical spaces dominated by Eurocolonial discourses.

Univ., Diss.--Campinas (São Paulo), 2002.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 403-450).

Thesis (M.A.)--Columbia International University, 1996. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-87).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht, 1865. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-155).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, 1924. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-175).