Practicing the Culture of the Encounter: Jesuits as Global Diplomats from the Early Modern Era to the Present

Georgetown Professor Emeritus José Casanova will explore the history of Jesuits as global diplomats in an interview by Thomas Banchoff, Georgetown’s vice president for global engagement, hosted by the Library for the annual Casey-McIlvane Memorial Lecture.

Jesuits have historically served as literal diplomats, as envoys of the Papacy or other state authorities conducting specific diplomatic missions. Casanova will also discuss a more general role for Jesuits, fostering cultural diplomacy throughout the world as they practice their missions.

Jose Casanova is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and emeritus professor of sociology and theology and religious studies at Georgetown. His book, Public Religions in the Modern World, is a modern classic that has been translated into many European and non-European languages. He has also published Global Religious and Secular Dynamics, and co-edited The Jesuits and Globalization with Banchoff and Islam, Gender and Democracy in Comparative Perspective with Jocelyne Cesari.

Thomas Banchoff is vice president for global engagement at Georgetown University and professor in the Department of Government and the Walsh School of Foreign Service. He serves as a senior fellow in Georgetown's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, which he led as founding director from 2006 to 2017. Banchoff's scholarship centers on ethical and religious issues in world politics. In addition to The Jesuits and Globalization, his publications include Embryo Politics: Ethics and Policy in Atlantic Democracies; Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights (co-edited with Robert Wuthnow); Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics (editor); and Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism (editor).