About Us

A free service provided by the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, the Portal offers informed direction to some of the richest materials associated with the Society of Jesus located at a variety of websites.

The Portal grants online access to a curated and fully searchable collection of important primary sources and some of the latest secondary scholarship related to the history, spirituality, educational heritage, and pedagogy approach of the Society of Jesus.

The Portal also hosts online resources, such as key documents in Jesuit history and a forthcoming lexicon of Jesuit terminology–both of which will receive regular updating.

The Portal collaborates with partner institutions to include the contents of additional online resources in a single search. The Portal’s search feature aggregates the content and, often, full texts from a variety of sources, including:

Digital Indipetae Database

The indipetae were letters written by Jesuits to their Superior General in application for the extra-European missions, usually called the “Indies.” The Digital Indipetae Database is an open access resource that allows for the exploration of the indipetae of both the Old and the New Society.

International Symposia on Jesuit Studies

The symposia series is held annually, and selected presentations appear in volumes available in Open Access. Using the Portal to search the volumes is forthcoming.

Jesuit Historiography Online

The Jesuit Historiography Online is an Open Access resource that will consist of more than 70 essays on a variety of topics and in a variety of disciplines associated with the history of the Society of Jesus.

Jesuit Online Bibliography

The Jesuit Online Bibliography provides bibliographical records for scholarship (books, chapters, articles, reviews, dissertations, and others materials) in the field of Jesuit Studies. The project is collaborative effort among Jesuit research centers and archives as well as scholars in the field of Jesuit Studies. 

Jesuit Online Library

The Jesuit Online Library allows users to search 39 Jesuit titles, across more than 1,000 volumes, simultaneously or to browse single volumes individually. The collection includes more than 150,000 pages from books and journals in English, French, German, Spanish, Latin, and Portuguese, and users can refine searches by title, date, publication, or author. Visit the free database at jesuitonlinelibrary.com.

Jesuit Sources

The Institute of Jesuit Sources publishes more than 100 volumes to promote its mission to preserve, maintain, and expand for scholars around the world important texts and studies in Jesuit history, spirituality, and pedagogy. Visit the publisher’s online catalogue at jesuitsources.bc.edu.

Jesuitica Directory

The directory allows for the searching of the titles, authors, and subjects of the more than 1,000 volumes of Boston College Libraries’ Jesuitica collection now available online.

Conimbricenses.org

Conimbricenses.org facilitates the exploration of the unique educational influence of the Coimbra Jesuit Aristotelian instruction that stretched from Portugal to Asia and South America between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. It publishes peer-reviewed encyclopedia entries and provides free, worldwide access to digitized versions of the most important documents related to the topic.

Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits

Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits is a journal dedicated to Jesuit history and spirituality, examining the spiritual doctrine and practice of Society of Jesus through scholarly essays. Its contents are available in Open Access.

Journal of Jesuit Studies

For the first five years of the peer-reviewed quarterly dedicated to the study of Jesuit history, the Institute allowed for Open Access to the Journal of Jesuit Studies, during which time the publication was indexed by both SCOPUS and the Web of Science as monthly downloads increased from 500 to more than 4,000.