
Civilizing Habits
Women Missionaries and the Revival of French Empire
Sarah A. Curtis(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
1st Edition
Published on 23. September 2010
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-0-19-539418-4 (ISBN)
Description
Civilizing Habits explores the life stories of three French women missionaries - Philippine Duchesne, Emilie de Vialar, and Anne-Marie Javouhey - who transgressed boundaries, both real and imagined, to evangelize far from France's shores. In so doing, this book argues that they helped France reestablish a global empire after the dislocation of the Revolution and the fall of Napoleon. They also pioneered a new missionary era in which the educational, charity, and health care services provided by women became valuable tools for spreading Catholic influence across the globe.
Philippine Duchesne, who began her religious life in a cloistered convent before the Revolution, traveled to former French territory in Missouri in 1818 to proselytize among Native American tribes. Thwarted by the American policy of removing tribes even further west, her main legacy became girls' education on the frontier. Emilie de Vialar followed French troops to Algeria after conquest in 1830 and opened missions throughout the Mediterranean basin. Prevented from direct conversion, she developed strategies and subterfuges for working among Muslim populations. Anne-Marie Javouhey made her life's work the evangelization of Africans in the French slave colonies, including a utopian settlement in the wilds of French Guiana. She became a rare Catholic proponent of the abolition of slavery and a woman designated a "great man " by the French king.
Freed from physical enclosure, these women were protected from worldly corruption only by their religious habits and their behavior. Paradoxically, however, through embracing religious institutions designed to shield their femininity, these women gained increased authority to travel outside of France, challenge church power, and evangelize among non-Christians, all roles more commonly ascribed to male missionaries. Their stories teach us about the life paths open to religious women in the nineteenth century and how both church and state benefitted from their initiative and energy to expand boundaries of faith and nation.
Philippine Duchesne, who began her religious life in a cloistered convent before the Revolution, traveled to former French territory in Missouri in 1818 to proselytize among Native American tribes. Thwarted by the American policy of removing tribes even further west, her main legacy became girls' education on the frontier. Emilie de Vialar followed French troops to Algeria after conquest in 1830 and opened missions throughout the Mediterranean basin. Prevented from direct conversion, she developed strategies and subterfuges for working among Muslim populations. Anne-Marie Javouhey made her life's work the evangelization of Africans in the French slave colonies, including a utopian settlement in the wilds of French Guiana. She became a rare Catholic proponent of the abolition of slavery and a woman designated a "great man " by the French king.
Freed from physical enclosure, these women were protected from worldly corruption only by their religious habits and their behavior. Paradoxically, however, through embracing religious institutions designed to shield their femininity, these women gained increased authority to travel outside of France, challenge church power, and evangelize among non-Christians, all roles more commonly ascribed to male missionaries. Their stories teach us about the life paths open to religious women in the nineteenth century and how both church and state benefitted from their initiative and energy to expand boundaries of faith and nation.
Reviews / Votes
allows us to see imperialism, womens activism, and religiousMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Academics and undergraduates studying French history, imperial history, gender history, women's biographies, history of Catholicism, history of slavery and abolitionism
Illustrations
3 black and white halftones
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
740 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-539418-4 (9780195394184)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
07/2012
Oxford University Press Inc
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E-Book
09/2010
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€19.99
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E-Book
08/2010
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€18.49
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Person
Associate Professor of History at San Francisco State University. Author, Educating the Faithful: Religion, Society, and Schooling in Nineteenth-Century France, DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000. French edition: L'enseignement au temps des congregations (Le diocese de Lyon, 1801-1905), Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 2003. Co-editor, Views from the Margins: Creating Identities in Modern France, University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
Author
Associate Professor of HistoryAssociate Professor of History, San Francisco State University
Content
CONTENTS; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; INTRODUCTION; PART I THE LIMITS OF ENCLOSURE: PHILIPPINE DUCHESNE; PART II SAVING SOULS: EMILIE DE VIALAR; PART III MISSIONARY UTOPIAS: ANNE-MARIE JAVOUHEY; CONCLUSION; NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX