University of Oregon

Department Member, Wired Humanities Projects

Director

About

My research has as its focus the histories of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, especially during the Spanish colonial era, and with special attention to the Nahuas. Besides working with Spanish-language manuscripts, I work with alphabetic manuscripts written in Nahuatl and I am increasingly interested in indigenous-authored pictorial manuscripts, lienzos, and the multicultural maps of the Relaciones Geográficas of the sixteenth century. My interest in primordial titles relates to a concern for the defense of indigenous land tenure in the face of invasion and colonization by Europeans. Sometimes this dire need on the part of pueblos to defend their territories led to what Europeans would see as contrivances in titles and maps, another fascinating issue that deserves nuanced study and explanation. Nuanced study of manuscripts has also led to the desire to perfect our translations, which underlies the efforts I am spearheading to create free, online, searchable lexicons of indigenous languages with attestations from manuscripts.  I welcome collaboration in these projects.

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