Shadows of Doubt: Language and Truth in Post-Reformation Catholic Culture

Named a Book of the Year by History Today In a compelling examination of the hermeneutical and epistemological anxieties gripping both the early modern and our current world, Stefania Tutino shows that post-Reformation Catholicism did not simply usher in modernity, but postmodernity as well. This deft study provides new insight into and a fresh perspective on the context of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic response to it. Shadows of Doubt provides a collection of case-studies centered on the relationship between language, the truth of men, and the Truth of theology. Most of these case-studies illuminate little-known figures in the history of early modern Catholicism. While the militant aspects of post-Tridentine Catholicism can be appreciated by studying figures such as Robert Bellarmine or Cesare Baronio, who were the solid pillars of the intellectual and theological structure of the Church of Rome, an understanding of the more fragile and shadowy aspects of early modernity requires an exploration of the demimonde of post-Reformation Catholicism. Tutino examines the thinkers whom few scholars mention and fewer read, demonstrating that post-Reformation Catholicism was not simply a world of solid certainties to be opposed to the Protestant falsehoods, but also a world in which the stable Truth of theology existed alongside and contributed to a number of far less stable truths concerning the world of men. Post-Reformation Catholic culture was not only concerned with articulating and affirming absolute truths, but also with exploring and negotiating the complex links between certainty and uncertainty. By bringing to light this fascinating and hitherto largely unexamined side of post-Tridentine Catholicism, Tutino reveals that post-Reformation Catholic culture was a vibrant laboratory for many of the issues that we face today: it was a world of fractures and fractured truths which we, with a heightened sensitivity to discrepancies and discontinuities, are now well-suited to understand.

About the Author :
Stefania Tutino received her Ph.D. from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, in 2003. She was previously a professor in the Departments of History and Religious Studies at UCSB. Now, she is a Professor of Early Modern History at UCLA. Her research focuses on the intellectual, political, and cultural history of early modern Catholicism.

Review :
"[An] erudite and fascinating study...This volume is a tour de force of reflection on historical method...Scholars of history, historiography, church history, and church historiography, particularly of the early modern period to the present, will find much in this book s five densely argued chapters to enlighten their paths of inquiry. This book is not to be missed."--Church History "A brilliant study of the theological and philosophical origins of postmodernism and the linguistic turn. By revealing the legacy of doubt bequeathed by contemporary conflicts, it casts the era of the Counter-Reformation in a completely new light."--History Today "This highly original and brilliantly argued study of the way in which truth claims were made and debated in post-Reformation Catholic culture is the work of a world-class scholar at the very top of her game. Tutino has not only made an indispensable contribution to the history of early modern skepticism and doubt, but has also recovered for attention the early modern origins of 'post-modern' awareness of the fragile relationship between truth and language. As such, her book will be required reading not only for historians of early modern Roman Catholicism but also for students of literature and philosophy of language more generally." --Simon Ditchfield, Reader in History, University of York "Post-Reformation Catholicism emerges from the pages of Shadows of Doubt as a far more complex, intellectually richer movement than the one that we have known. Whereas past scholarship tends to emphasize the solid certainties of post-Reformation Catholicism, Shadows of Doubt reveals the 'dark side' of the story: a world in which the unquestioned truth of theology existed together with grave doubts about the link between human language and reality." --Ronald Witt, Professor Emeritus of History, Duke University "Tutino deftly overturns stereotypes by exploring the pre-modern antecedents of post modernity. She gives us an Age of Faith less closed in its convictions because it remains remarkably open in its sense of how God speaks Truth. As a globalizing Catholicism grapples with many new languages and cultures, her authors explore the limits of language, and face questions of doubt that arise when all language becomes suspect-perhaps even God's." --Nicholas Terpstra, Professor of History, University of Toronto "This scholarly, original, and entertaining book is an important contribution to the history of European Catholic culture in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is based on an impressive mass of manuscript and printed primary sources, much of which has rarely if ever been utilized before... The book notably contains a great deal of incidental but valuable information (for instance, on the process by which Jesuits approved books for the press). It deserves to be read by everyone interested in post-Reformation culture and ideas." --Renaissance Quarterly