Textual Network and Knowledge Network: Jesuit Periodicals and the “Dimensionalisation” of Scientific Knowledge

Abstract This essay aims to show the emergence of a network of periodicals devoted to scientific issues that were promoted by the Society of Jesus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Considering periodicals as dynamic collectives in themselves, rather than solely as builders of scientific communities, as recent historiography of the scientific periodical press has suggested, it examines the textual network as a result of the intersection of the Society’s scriptural culture with its polyvalent and transnational communication system. It shows how this network was characterised by its wide variety of discursive genres and modes and its multifunctionality (apologetic, popular science, specialised, collegial and corporate). The essay suggests that the introduction of this diversity of genres and modes provided multiple discursive perspectives that contributed to the dimensionalisation of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, it suggests that the co-construction of the textual network and the knowledge network was the driving force behind this interrelation.