J. Michelle Molina is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University. Prof. Molina (PhD, University of Chicago, 2004) studies the Society of Jesus in the early modern period. She has explored Jesuit spirituality in an effort to understand how individuals – both elite and commoner — approached and experienced religious transformation. In particular, she has been interested in examining the impact of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises – a meditative retreat geared toward self-reform – on early modern global expansion. Molina’s book, To Overcome Oneself: The Jesuit Ethic and the Spirit of Global Expansion is published with University of California Press. She is now writing a book about the expulsion of the Jesuits from Mexico in 1767.