Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere

“Urban Indians in Santafé and Tunja, 1568-1668”

Our colleague, Max Deardorff, joined us in 2018 from the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt. A historian of colonial Latin America and early modern Iberia, he is interested in religious and ethnic minorities, identity construction, and legal and normative frameworks in the early modern world. Mestizos, Indios Ladinos, and ‘Arabic Christians’: Categories of Difference and Christian Citizenship in the Spanish Empire (forthcoming) will examine early modern categories of race and “citizenship” in the 16th and 17th centuries, showing how new imperial subjects sought enfranchisement in frontier towns and cities of the far-flung Spanish monarchy. He has placed articles in many impressive venues, and his “The Ties that Bind: Intermarriage between Moriscos and Old Christians in Early Modern Spain, 1526-1614” (Journal of Family History) received a “best early career article” prize in Iberian history from the Association for Spanish & Portuguese Historical Studies.

Discussants

José Carlos de la Puente Luna (Texas State University) is a historian of Andean peoples and the Spanish empire. Understanding the formation of colonial indigenous legal, political, and literate cultures has been his aim, with interventions in native accounting technologies, the colonial Inka nobility, intellectuals and intermediaries, and land tenure and territorial representation. Andean Cosmopolitans (Austin, 2018; recipient of the Flora Tristan Award) reconstructs the worlds of native litigants and favor-seekers at the Spanish Habsburg royal court. Another book centers on the witchcraft accusations of indigenous lords against political rivals in late 17th century Peru.

Maya Stanfield-Mazzi is a colonial Latin Americanist in UF’s Art History department. She specializes in pre-Columbian arts and those of the colonial Andes. An important focus has been on indigenous peoples transforming Catholicism through their art and textiles. Object and Apparition: Envisioning the Christian Divine in the Colonial Andes (2013) shows how Catholicism took hold as Andeans envisioned and materialized images of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Clothing the New World Church: Liturgical Textiles of Spanish America, 1520-1820 (2021) is a broad survey of the “church clothing” adorning Catholic churches. Viceroyalty of Peru painting, regional architecture, and Peruvian heritage projects are other interests.

Contact Prof. Nancy Hunt (nrhunt@ufl.edu) for the Zoom link and draft paper to be discussed.