material culture Archives

Las cosas tienen vida: Un podcast sobre el rol de los objetos coloniales en nuestras vidas actuales

Este artículo es parte de la serie: History beyond Academia

This article has an English version

La historia es, ante todo, un esfuerzo por comprender el pasado. Quienes la estudiamos buscamos reconstruir e interpretar lo que ocurrió, utilizando métodos que nos permitan hacerlo con cuidado y rigor. Para ello trabajamos con documentos del pasado (lo que los historiadores llamamos fuentes primarias) que pueden ser verdaderos, falsos o incluso contener un poco de ambos. A partir de estos materiales, y en diálogo con otros investigadores, vamos construyendo interpretaciones que nos ayudan a entender cada época desde su propio contexto. Muchas veces, creemos que se trata de un trabajo individual entre intelectuales, sin embargo, como señala el historiador británico Raphael Samuel, “la historia es una forma social de conocimiento, el trabajo […] de miles de manos distintas.”^[1] Esto quiere decir que cualquier persona, desde una abuelita hasta el cartero, cotidianamente van contando y evaluando hechos históricos, que se van contando como tradición oral u escrita: ¡No es un monopolio de los historiadores!

Siempre concebimos el podcast como una oportunidad para ofrecer herramientas históricas a nuestro público. En cada episodio presentamos tanto los objetos —las cosas, en este caso— como a investigadores destacados, con el propósito de mostrar las diversas maneras de narrar y comprender un objeto histórico, especialmente del pasado colonial y sus implicancias en el presente, ya se encuentre en un museo, una iglesia o una colección privada. Este trabajo colaborativo nos ha permitido construir una visión del pasado colonial que buscamos compartir y enriquecer en diálogo con nuestra audiencia.

En este artículo queremos reflexionar sobre el significado de esos objetos históricos y su revalorización por parte de los investigadores, trasladando su importancia del presente al pasado y viceversa, a través de un medio de comunicación público, como lo es un podcast.

Logo del Podcast “Las cosas tienen vida”

El podcast “Las cosas tienen vida” (Imagen 1) salió por primera vez en abril de 2021 como un proyecto de Historia Pública^[2]. Su objetivo era despertar el interés de un público amplio de habla hispana en los nuevos métodos de investigación histórica, a partir del estudio de diversos objetos culturales. El proyecto comenzó a tomar forma varios meses antes, durante las pausas para el café que aliviaban nuestras largas jornadas de trabajo en el Archivo de Indias, en Sevilla. Entre los montículos de documentos coloniales, nuestras conversaciones se repetían una y otra vez, siempre volviendo al mismo punto: la frustrante falta de espacios donde poder compartir nuestras investigaciones con el público más allá del mundo académico. Cuestionamos si había una manera amena para divulgar los avances científicos de nuestros colegas a la medida de un público general. ¿Para quiénes son realmente estas historias en las que invertimos tanto esfuerzo y dedicación? ¿Podríamos construir comunidades que den valor a estos objetos históricos? ¿Cómo podemos abrir espacios donde los investigadores compartan sus trabajos con un público no especializado? No sabemos si fue el efecto de la pandemia o, más bien, el último arranque de energía de nuestra vida como doctorandos, pero de ahí nació la idea de crear algo nuevo.

A primera vista, nuestro podcast podría parecer similar a otras propuestas que narran la historia del mundo o de un país a través de una serie de objetos^[3]. Sin embargo, nuestro propósito es distinto: no buscamos ofrecer una mirada identitaria o cerrada sobre una comunidad y su tiempo, sino abrir nuevas formas de comprender la historia y sus objetos dentro de un espacio tan vasto y diverso como lo fue el mundo ibérico durante la temprana modernidad.

Nosotros no contamos las historias: solo abrimos el micrófono. Quienes realmente las cuentan son nuestros entrevistados quienes son los que las investigan. En cada temporada invitamos a entre diez y doce especialistas cuyos trabajos abarcan distintas regiones del mundo ibérico colonial, mostrando así la riqueza de miradas y métodos posibles para estudiar el pasado. Cada invitado-investigador elige un artefacto y, a partir de él, nos guía por su propio recorrido histórico. Hasta ahora, el podcast reúne más de cien episodios distribuidos en nueve temporadas, con la participación de investigadores de diecisiete países y de disciplinas tan diversas como la arqueología, la ingeniería, la historia y la historia del arte.

Nuestro “gabinete radiofónico” de objetos no sigue un criterio de selección rígido; más bien se mueve con libertad en un desorden creativo que nos encanta. Desde el inicio, quisimos centrar la atención en las decisiones de cada investigador, convencidos de que hacer historia es también un acto político. Eso implica aceptar que no podemos controlar la narrativa de los objetos ni pretender ofrecer una verdad única. En cambio, compartimos nuestras propias inquietudes y experiencias a través de ellos.

Dentro de ese aparente caos siempre buscamos un hilo común: la relación entre las personas y sus objetos, en el pasado y en el presente. Esa conexión despierta la pasión de los historiadores e investigadores, algo que se siente en cada conversación. Por eso, en los episodios más recientes, empezamos a preguntar a nuestros entrevistados directamente por la elección del objeto, el interés que lo inspira y, muchas veces, por el momento en que se produjo el primer encuentro con él.

En ese sentido, al incorporar objetos del mundo iberoamericano, e incluso del ámbito ibero-asiático, hemos podido cruzar barreras nacionales y fronteras físicas, incluso intelectuales. Esos entrecruzamientos han sido especialmente fructíferos, como el caso de la historiadora argentina Lucila Iglesias hablando de sobre un objeto del área chilena, el “Cristo de Mayo”; la chilena Laura Fahrenkrog, sobre unos instrumentos musicales en el Paraguay colonial; o la española, Marina Torres, sobre un gorro sacerdotal católico proveniente del Museo Provincial de Guangdong en China^[4]. Aquí las coordenadas se desdibujan y dan lugar a nuevas combinaciones que nos entusiasman. Rompemos, así, con el paradigma nacional que todavía nos condiciona, es decir, esa idea de que un historiador chileno debe estudiar la historia de Chile o una californiana, la de California.

En los últimos cinco años hemos aprendido de todo: desde cómo hacer una buena entrevista hasta cómo sobrevivir a la edición final. Dada la diversidad de nuestros invitados [RT1] , dependemos de tecnologías como Zoom para grabar los episodios (Imagen 2). Luego, editamos cuidadosamente cada uno para que tanto el investigador como el objeto tengan la mejor presencia posible, utilizando herramientas como Audacity. Después, gestionamos las redes y plataformas digitales para difundir los episodios entre un público amplio. Cada temporada ajustamos ligeramente el formato de las entrevistas, incorporando los comentarios y sugerencias de nuestros oyentes.

Por ejemplo, al principio producíamos episodios más largos, de entre 45 minutos y una hora. Sin embargo, muchos oyentes nos comentaron que resultaban demasiado extensos para los contextos en que escuchaban el podcast. Algunas de nuestras oyentes nos han contado, entre risas, que escuchan el podcast mientras practican yoga. Desde entonces, procuramos mantenerlos entre 25 y 30 minutos. No sería exagerado decir que detrás de cada episodio de 25 minutos hay más de diez horas de trabajo. Aun así, seguimos dedicándonos a esta labor no remunerada como un acto de amor y también como un gesto político hacia las historias y las investigaciones que compartimos.

Imagen dos: José y Kate en grabaciones

A lo largo de nuestras nueve temporadas hemos creado un gabinete virtual lleno de objetos fascinantes: desde un cojín extraviado que reapareció en medio de una disputa política durante la ceremonia del alférez mayor en Quito, en 1573,^[5] hasta obras pictóricas más clásicas, como la pintura de la Magdalena en éxtasis hecha por un artista cuzqueño y que hoy en día forma parte de la Colección Thoma (EEUU).^[6] Optar por titular cada episodio como ‘Un’ —ya sea una botija o una obra de Velázquez, episodio próximamente a estrenarse en nuestra nueva temporada— refleja una postura desafiante frente a la idea dominante de canon historiográfico. No somos un podcast de obras canónicas. En cambio, damos voz a los objetos sin imponerles un marco estilístico o historiográfico previo. Al examinar distintos tipos de cosas, buscamos mostrar la importancia de estudiarlas de forma integrada, como respuestas individuales a dinámicas locales y globales que caracterizaron la mundialización ibérica^[7].

No creemos que baste con mostrar una variedad de objetos. En nuestro podcast buscamos profundizar en cada uno a través de un análisis que va más allá de su simple descripción. Exploramos su valor histórico, su propósito, la realidad que representan y el contexto en que surgieron. Nos preguntamos qué mensajes transmiten, cuál fue su papel en su tiempo y qué significan hoy. Además, reflexionamos sobre las formas actuales de acceso a estos objetos y complementamos cada episodio con libros o artículos sobre el tema, idealmente escrito por los propios invitados.

Sin embargo, hacer la historia accesible no garantiza que la gente la escuche. Desde el lanzamiento del primer episodio hemos alcanzado más de 10.600 descargas, lo que significa que cada uno de esos episodios fue guardado por un usuario en su dispositivo.^[8] El número de escuchas son super variables… depende del tipo de objeto y el lugar de proveniencia. Por ejemplo, la espada de Bolívar [RT2] tiene muchas más escuchas en Colombia que en otros espacios^[9]. Las comunidades locales suelen mostrarse especialmente receptivas a nuestros episodios y, muchas veces, también al compromiso de los propios investigadores. Así ocurre, por ejemplo, con el episodio dedicado a “un fragmento de arcilla blanca” en Cajamarca, presentado por Solsire Cusicanqui^[10].

Gracias a la beca RSA Grant for Public Engagement Project in Renaissance Studies, entregada por la institución norteamericana Renassaince Society of America, en el último año hemos podido expandir nuestro proyecto a otras plataformas. Hemos creado una página web: www.lascosastienenvida.com, pensada para complementar el podcast. (Imagen 3)

Página web de Las cosas tienen vida.

Comenzamos con los episodios más recientes, ya que necesitamos permisos de autor e imagen para publicar los anteriores. Como mencionamos, contamos con una amplia colección de grabaciones. La página web ofrece tres formas distintas de visualizar los objetos, permitiendo a los oyentes establecer conexiones temporales, geográficas y visuales entre ellos. Al hacer clic en cualquier imagen, se accede a la página individual del objeto. Por ejemplo, en la dedicada a la escalera incaica, primer objeto de la octava temporada, se observa el formato general de todas las páginas (Imagen 4). Cada una incluye la imagen del objeto, el episodio del podcast, su transcripción en español e inglés, y una breve biografía con fotografía del investigador.

Modelo de una página web con una escalera incaica argentina

Modelo de una página con un objeto y su entrevista.

Además, la nueva página web constituye un valioso recurso educativo, tanto para la enseñanza secundaria como universitaria. Ofrece a estudiantes y docentes la oportunidad de explorar nuevos objetos, formular preguntas críticas y, por qué no, abrir caminos hacia futuras investigaciones. La plataforma fomenta un aprendizaje activo, invitando a historiadores, estudiantes y público general a explorar el pasado con curiosidad y rigor. Más que una herramienta digital, es un espacio interactivo donde los objetos cobran vida y se vuelven accesibles para una audiencia amplia. Su objetivo es servir como puente entre la historia y la comunidad, promoviendo el diálogo y la participación en torno al pasado compartido.

A modo de cierre, quisiéramos retomar una pregunta que el historiador Marc Bloch inmortalizó hace más de setenta años: “Papá, explícame, ¿para qué sirve la historia?”^[11]. Nuestra respuesta, hoy, ha sido crear un podcast. En Las cosas tienen vida mostramos que la historia no solo ilumina el pasado, sino que conecta culturas, geografías y experiencias humanas a través de los objetos que nos rodean. A lo largo de nueve temporadas, hemos explorado esa relación entre objetos e historia junto a investigadores de distintos países y disciplinas, revelando múltiples formas de comprender el mundo. Con la nueva página web damos un paso más en esa dirección: un espacio que enlaza los objetos en el tiempo y el espacio y funciona como herramienta educativa y de difusión del conocimiento histórico. Queremos que la historia siga dialogando con la comunidad, inspirando a cada oyente, estudiante e investigador a encontrar en los objetos del pasado su propia respuesta a esa eterna pregunta: ¿para qué sirve la historia?

Kate (Katherine) Mills es investigadora posdoctoral en el Kunsthistorisches Institut de Florencia. Obtuvo su doctorado (Ph.D.) en Historia del Arte por la Universidad de Harvard y una maestría (M.A.) en Historia de la Monarquía Hispánica por la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Su investigación actual examina la relación entre los desastres naturales en los Andes y los artistas que contribuyeron a la reconstrucción de las ciudades afectadas.

José Araneda Riquelme es investigador posdoctoral en el proyecto MISGLOB, “Misiones católicas y la circulación global de personas y bienes en la época moderna temprana (1500–1800)”, en la Universidad Roma Tre. Obtuvo su doctorado (Ph.D.) en Historia Moderna por la Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa y una maestría (M.A.) en Historia por la Universidad Católica de Chile. Su investigación explora la relación entre la comunicación y la construcción del Imperio español durante el siglo XVII.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

^[1] Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso, 1994), 15.

^[2] “Historia pública” es la práctica de hacer historia con y para el público. Busca compartir la investigación histórica más allá del ámbito académico, promoviendo la participación ciudadana en la interpretación y uso del pasado. Thomas Cauvin, Public History a Textbook of Practice, 2nd Edition, (London: Routledge, 2022), p. 4

^[3] MacGregor, Neil. A History of the World in 100 Objects. New York: Penguin Books, 2013 y Lucena Giraldo, Manuel. 82 objetos que cuentan un país: Una historia de España. Madrid: Taurus, 2015.

^[4] José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Un gorro sacerdotal (China, s. XVIII). Con Marina Torres. Ep. 3×05 (12/04/2022)», Con Marina Torres. Ep. 3×05 (12/04/2022), Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.; José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Un documento de unos músicos indígenas (Paraguay, s. XVIII)», Con Laura Fahrenkrog. Ep. 2×02 (31/08/2021), Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.; Araneda Riquelme y Mills, «Un gorro sacerdotal (China, s. XVIII). Con Marina Torres. Ep. 3×05 (12/04/2022)».

^[5] José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Un Cojín (Ecuador, 1573)», Con Laura Paz Escala. Ep. 5×05 (16/05/2023), Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.

^[6] José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Una Magdalena en éxtasis (Perú, s. XVIII)», Con Rosario Granados. Ep. 4×01 (13/09/2022), Las cosas tienen vida, s. f; José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Un Velázquez (España, 1632)», Con Cécile Vincent-Cassy. Ep. 9×07 (13/01/2026), Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.

^[7] Serge Gruzinski, Las cuatro partes del mundo: historia de una mundialización (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010).

^[8] Datos derivados de las estadísticas privadas que nos entrega nuestra plataforma de podcast “Buzzsprout”.

^[9] Por ejemplo, el episodio “Una espada de Simón Bolívar” (temporada 4, episodio 9) analiza la espada del líder revolucionario Simón Bolívar. El veinte por ciento del total de descargas de este episodio proviene de Colombia, en particular de la región de Bogotá, donde actualmente se encuentra la espada.

José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Una espada de Simón Bolívar (Colombia, s. XIX)», Con Juliana Ramírez Herrera. Ep. 4×09 (08/10/2022), Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.

^[10] José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Un fragmento de cerámica blanca (Perú)», Con Solsire Cusicanqui. Ep. 3×10 (17/05/2022)., Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.

^[11] Marc Bloch, Apología para la historia o el oficio de historiador [1949] (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2001).

[RT1]diversidad geográfica, en este caso? o de otro tipo también?

[RT2]del líder independentista de Sudamérica o algo así, para los que no sepan de él

Las cosas tienen vida: A Podcast About the Role of Colonial Objects in Our Present Lives

This article is part of the series: History Beyond Academia

Este artículo tiene una versión en español.

History is, above all, an effort to understand the past. Those of us who study it seek to reconstruct and interpret what happened, using methods that allow us to do so with care and rigor. We work with documents from the past—what historians call primary sources—which may be genuine, falsified, or somewhere in between. From these materials, and in dialogue with other researchers, we build interpretations that help us understand each era within its own context.

Often, we think of history as an individual pursuit among intellectuals. However, as the British historian Raphael Samuel noted, history is “a social form of knowledge, the work […] of a thousand different hands.”^[1] This means that anyone—from a grandmother to a mail carrier—tells and evaluates historical events in their everyday lives, passing them down through oral or written traditions. History is not the monopoly of historians!

From the start, we conceived of the podcast as an opportunity to offer historical tools to a wider audience. In each episode, we present both objects—“things,” in this case—and distinguished researchers, with the goal of showing the many ways one can narrate and interpret a historical object, especially those from the colonial past and their implications in the present, whether the object is found in a museum, a church, or a private collection. This collaborative work has allowed us to build a shared vision of the colonial past—one we hope to enrich through dialogue with our listeners.

In this article, we reflect on the meaning of these historical objects and the ways researchers have revalued them—transferring their significance from the present to the past and vice versa—through a public medium such as a podcast.

Podcast logo: Las cosas tienen vida.

The podcast Las cosas tienen vida (“Things Have a Life of Their Own”) first aired in April 2021 as a Public History project.^[2] Its goal was to awaken interest among a broad Spanish-speaking audience in new methods of historical research through the study of cultural objects.

The idea took shape months earlier, during the coffee breaks that punctuated our long workdays at the Archivo de Indias in Seville. Among the piles of colonial documents, our conversations kept circling back to the same frustration: alack of spaces where we could share our research beyond academia. We wondered whether there was an engaging way to communicate our colleagues’ scientific advances to a general audience.

Who are these stories really for—the ones we devote so much effort and passion to? Could we build communities that value historical objects? How can we create spaces for researchers to share their work with non-specialists? Perhaps it was the effect of the pandemic—or simply a final burst of energy in our doctoral lives—but that’s how the idea to create something new was born.

At first glance, our podcast might resemble other projects that tell the history of the world or a nation through a series of objects.^[3] But our purpose is different: we don’t aim to offer an identity-based or closed interpretation of a community and its time. Instead, we want to open up new ways of understanding history and its objects across the vast and diverse space that was the Iberian world in the early modern period.

We don’t tell the stories—we simply open the microphone. The storytellers are our guests, the researchers themselves. Each season, we invite ten to twelve specialists whose work covers different regions of the Iberian colonial world, showcasing the richness of perspectives and methods used to study the past. Each guest chooses an artifact and, from there, guides us through their own historical journey.

So far, the podcast includes more than one hundred episodes across nine seasons, featuring researchers from seventeen countries and disciplines as diverse as archaeology, engineering, history, and art history.

Our “radio cabinet of curiosities” follows no rigid selection criteria; instead, it moves freely within a creative kind of disorder that we love. From the beginning, we wanted to center each researcher’s choices, convinced that doing history is also a political act. This means accepting that we cannot control an object’s narrative or claim a single truth. Rather, we share our own questions and experiences through them.

Within that apparent chaos, we always seek a common thread: the relationship between people and their objects, both past and present. That connection is what ignites historians’ passion—a feeling that comes through in every conversation. In recent episodes, we have begun even asking our guests directly about why they chose their object, what drew their interest, and when they first encountered it.

By incorporating objects from the Ibero-American and even Ibero-Asian worlds, we’ve been able to cross national, physical, and intellectual borders. These crossings have been especially fruitful: for instance, Argentine historian Lucila Iglesias discusses a Chilean object—the Cristo de Mayo; Chilean researcher Laura Fahrenkrog colonial Paraguayan musical instruments; or Spanish scholar Marina Torres a Catholic priest’s cap from the Guangdong Provincial Museum in China.^[4] In such cases, boundaries blur and give rise to new, exciting combinations. We thus break away from the national paradigm that still conditions us—the idea that a Chilean historian must study Chile’s history, or a Californian, California’s.

Over the past five years, we’ve learned almost everything—from how to conduct a good interview to how to survive final editing. Given the geographical diversity of our guests, we rely on technologies like Zoom to record episodes. Then, we carefully edit each one so that both the researcher and the object are presented in the best possible way, using tools like Audacity. Afterward, we manage social media and digital platforms to reach a wide audience. Each season, we tweak the format based on listener feedback and suggestions.

For example, at first we produced longer episodes—45 minutes to an hour—but listeners told us that was too long for their typical listening habits. Some even told us, laughing, that they listen to the podcast while doing yoga! Since then, we’ve aimed to keep episodes between 25 and 30 minutes. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that behind each 25-minute episode there are over ten hours of work. Still, we continue this unpaid labor as an act of love—and as a political gesture toward the stories and research we share.

José y Kate during a recording session.

Throughout our nine seasons, we’ve built a virtual cabinet full of fascinating objects: from a lost cushion that resurfaced in the midst of a political dispute during the alférez mayor ceremony in Quito in 1573,^[5] to more traditional artworks like a Cuzqueñan School painting of the Magdalene in Ecstasy, now part of the Thoma Collection in the U.S.^[6]

Our decision to title each episode as ”un (a)”—for example, A jar or A painting by Velázquez (an upcoming episode in our new season)—is a deliberate stance against the dominance of canonical historiography. We’re not a podcast about canonical works. Instead, we give voice to objects without imposing a stylistic or historiographical framework upon them. By examining different kinds of things, we aim to show the importance of studying them holistically—as individual responses to the local and global dynamics that characterized Iberian globalization.^[7]

But it’s not enough to show a variety of objects. In our podcast, we strive to delve deeply into each one, going beyond mere description. We explore its historical value, its purpose, the reality it represents, and the context in which it emerged. We ask what messages it conveys, what role it played in its time, and what it means today. We also reflect on how these objects are accessed today and complement each episode with books or articles on the topic—ideally written by the guest researcher themselves.

Of course, making history accessible doesn’t guarantee people will listen. Since the first episode, we’ve reached over 10,600 downloads, meaning that each episode was saved by a user on their device.^[8] Listen counts vary widely depending on the object and its origin. For instance, the episode on South American Revolutionary leader Simon Bolívar’s sword has many more listens in Colombia than elsewhere.^[9] Local communities are often especially receptive, both to the episodes and to the researchers’ own engagement—like in the episode about “a fragment of white clay” in Cajamarca, presented by Solsire Cusicanqui.^[10]

Thanks to the RSA Grant for Public Engagement Project in Renaissance Studies, awarded by the Renaissance Society of America, we’ve recently expanded the project to other platforms by creating a website: www.lascosastienenvida.com.

Las cosas tienen vida web page.

We began by uploading the most recent episodes, as older ones require image and copyright permissions. Our large archive of recordings will be gradually added. The website offers three different ways to visualize the objects, allowing listeners to make temporal, geographic, and visual connections among them. Clicking on any image opens an individual object page. For example, the page for the Inca staircase—the first object in season eight—shows the general layout: each page includes an image of the object, the podcast episode, its transcript in Spanish and English, and a brief biography and photo of the researcher.

Template with an object and its interview.

The new website also serves as a valuable educational resource, both for secondary and university teaching. It offers students and teachers the opportunity to explore new objects, ask critical questions, and even develop future research projects. The platform encourages active learning, inviting historians, students, and the general public to explore the past with curiosity and rigor. More than a digital tool, it’s an interactive space where objects come to life and become accessible to a wide audience. Its goal is to serve as a bridge between history and community, promoting dialogue and participation around our shared past.

As a closing thought, we’d like to return to a question historian Marc Bloch immortalized more than seventy years ago: “Tell me, father, what’s the use of history?”.^[11] Our answer today has been to create a podcast. In Las cosas tienen vida, we show that history not only illuminates the past but also connects cultures, geographies, and human experiences through the objects that surround us. Across nine seasons, we’ve explored that relationship between objects and history with researchers from different countries and disciplines, revealing multiple ways of understanding the world.

With our new website, we take that mission one step further—creating a space that links objects across time and space and serves as both an educational tool and a platform for sharing historical knowledge. We want history to keep engaging with communities, inspiring every listener, student, and researcher to find, in the objects of the past, their own answer to that eternal question: What is history for?

Kate (Katherine) Mills is a postdoctoral fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from Harvard University and an M.A. in the History of the Spanish Monarchy from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her current research examines the relationship between Andean natural disasters and the artists who contributed to the reconstruction of affected cities.

José Araneda Riquelme is a postdoctoral fellow in the MISGLOB Project, “Catholic missions and the global circulation of people and goods in the early modern period (1500–1800)”, at Roma Tre University. He holds a Ph.D. in Early Modern History from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and an M.A. in History from the Universidad Católica de Chile. His research explores the relationship between communication and the construction of the Spanish Empire during the seventeenth century.

^[1] Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso, 1994), 15.

^[2] “Public history” is the practice of doing history with and for the public. It seeks to share historical research beyond the academic sphere, promoting civic participation in the interpretation and use of the past.
Thomas Cauvin, Public History: A Textbook of Practice, 2nd Edition (London: Routledge, 2022), p. 4.

^[3] MacGregor, Neil. A History of the World in 100 Objects. New York: Penguin Books, 2013 y Lucena Giraldo, Manuel. 82 objetos que cuentan un país: Una historia de España. Madrid: Taurus, 2015.

^[5] José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Un Cojín (Ecuador, 1573)», Con Laura Paz Escala. Ep. 5×05 (16/05/2023), Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.

^[7] Serge Gruzinski, Las cuatro partes del mundo: historia de una mundialización (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2010).

^[8] Datos derivados de las estadísticas privadas que nos entrega nuestra plataforma de podcast “Buzzsprout”.

José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Una espada de Simón Bolívar (Colombia, s. XIX)», Con Juliana Ramírez Herrera. Ep. 4×09 (08/10/2022), Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.

^[10] José Araneda Riquelme y Kate Mills, «Un fragmento de cerámica blanca (Perú)», Con Solsire Cusicanqui. Ep. 3×10 (17/05/2022)., Las cosas tienen vida, s. f.

^[11] Marc Bloch, Apología para la historia o el oficio de historiador [1949] (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2001).

Review of The Floating World: Masterpieces of Edo Japan at The Blanton Museum of Art

The Floating World: Masterpieces of Edo Japan from the Worcester Art Museum, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin,

Over one hundred ink-and-paper survivors from “the floating world” of Edo-period Japan are on display at the Blanton Museum in Austin, Texas. This diverse collection of woodblock prints, many of them strikingly colorful despite the passage of two centuries or more, debuted on February 11, 2024, and will close on June 30, 2024. Like spring’s short-lived cherry blossoms, these ukiyo-e masterpieces will not appear in public again for a long while and never in quite the same splendid arrangement. On the drizzly April day, I viewed them, the exhibit space was especially crowded, as eclipse-watchers who’d traveled to Austin for the celestial event rounded out their trips with a weatherproof indoor spectacle. A woodblock print exhibit may not be quite as rare as a Texas eclipse, but it’s rare enough that you don’t want to miss it.

Katsushika Hokusai, Fuji at Gotenyama, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, 1830–32, color woodblock print, 17 1/8 x 23 1/8 x 1 in., Worcester Art Museum, John Chandler Bancroft Collection, courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art

The Japanese phrase ukiyo-e translates to “pictures of the floating world,” a reference to the almost otherworldly pleasures of Edo (now Tokyo) during the relatively peaceful, prosperous, and cosmopolitan 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. It was peaceful because the Tokugawa clan, the last shogunal dynasty, had emerged victorious in the great battles for supremacy that took place at the end of the sixteenth century. It was prosperous because the shogun required Japan’s many regional lords to make biannual pilgrimages to Edo, ensuring steady business for the city’s merchants. It was cosmopolitan because, despite severe restrictions on foreign trade, ideas from the other side of the world trickled through to the capital and influenced its now-iconic artwork in ways this exhibit makes clear. Most suggestively, Edo “floated” through its golden age because of its courtesans, actors, athletes, festivals, fireworks, gardens, bridges, temples, and breathtaking vistas, both natural and man-made, all of which remain alive for us thanks to the detailed, dreamlike output of the era’s woodblock print masters.

The Blanton’s well-annotated trip through the floating world plays out in five thematic sections, though there is some inevitable overlap between them. The first and smallest, Origins, introduces the time, place, and, critically, the technique of woodblock printing. A final ukiyo-e print was the work of about four people: a designer, a carver, a printer, and a publisher. To illustrate their craftsmanship, Texas artist Daryl Howard offers an introductory display – a work of art in its own right – that breaks down the process. First, each layer of the image is carved into a wood block (backward from how it will appear on paper). Next, colorful ink is brushed onto the wood blocks. The paper is then pressed onto the blocks, one after another, resulting in a layered, multicolored final image.

*The Floating World: Masterpieces of Edo Japan from the Worcester Art Museum*, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, February 11–June 30, 2024, *courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art*

Over time, ukiyo-e artists increased the number of layers and colors. The colors themselves changed over time, as when a new and longer-lasting chemical formula for “Prussian blue” arrived in Japan via Dutch sailors. Some woodblock artists were keen to experiment with foreign techniques like one-point perspective. As the Edo era approached its violent end, prints sometimes depicted foreign gunboats flying foreign flags with foreign crews. Yet, for the most part, both the style and the content of ukiyo-e prints remained decidedly local.

The second part of the exhibit, Entertainment, shows the many ways the people of Edo amused themselves. Prints depict frolics under spring cherry blossoms, summer fireworks, autumn foliage, and winter snow. In one large triptych, people go pleasure boating under a landmark Edo footbridge. It also seems strikingly familiar. As curator Holly Borham points out, scenes like this happen almost daily a few blocks south of the Blanton on Austin’s Ladybird Lake. There are also prints detailing the military prowess of the samurai caste, but with the absence of battles under Tokugawa rule, martial pomp takes on a playful quality. Warriors throw themselves into a fray against a wild boar, they practice archery for sport, and children reenact military parades. Right alongside elite samurai, and seemingly even more celebrated and coveted, are prints of famous kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers. “Candid” illustrations of entertainers’ private lives, as they relax at home with family, seem to prefigure a later century’s magazine spreads.

*Katsushika Hokusai, A Hawk in Flight, circa 1840, color woodblock print, 17 1/8 x 23 1/8 x 1 in., Worcester Art Museum, Gift from the estate of John Chandler Bancroft*, *courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art*

Part three of the exhibit, Poetic Pictures, shows one of the social functions of ukiyo-e as a platform for celebrating ideas. While woodblock prints were first and foremost decorative objects, some of them contain substantial text. Poetry clubs and other groups of literati could commission prints to commemorate their contests and events. Occasionally, the Japanese language’s complex kanji characters are accompanied by furigana, simpler characters to aid pronunciation, but the majority of prints assume a high degree of literacy on the part of their audience. This fact alone speaks volumes about the social world of Edo, as peace and prosperity facilitated education for men and women alike. Don’t worry if your archaic Japanese is rusty – the exhibit’s explanatory panels are generous and in plain English.

As the first three parts of the exhibit show, contemporary earthly pleasure is a far more common subject in ukiyo-e than religion, history, or myth, but the Blanton also spotlights some of the movement’s most interesting counter-programming. The famous artist Utamaro found himself in prison after violating the shogun’s prohibition against depicting the 16th-century warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who had a complex relationship with the Tokugawa family that deposed his son. Gods, monsters, demon-slayers, and ghosts also appear occasionally, though in keeping with the recreational spirit of the era, several of these are actually depictions of stage plays about the supernatural. Playful monkeys, brash roosters, and fearsome dragons also rear their heads, sometimes in reference to the zodiac but often as supporting players in anthropocentric scenes.

The fourth section, Landscapes and the Natural World, contains some of the best-loved examples of the ukiyo-e art form. Here you can soak in several large, vivid pieces from two legendary printmakers whose work has inspired generations of designers, travelers, and Japan lovers: Hokusai, creator of the 36 Views of Mt. Fuji series, and Hiroshige, the artist behind the 100 Famous Views of Edo series. The Blanton exhibit boasts examples from each series, and all on their own, they justify fighting Austin traffic.

Utagawa Kunisada I, Woman Holding a Paper Lantern, 1844, color woodblock print, 38 5/8 x 19 5/8 x 1 1/4 in., Worcester Art Museum, John Chandler Bancroft Collection, Courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art

The final part of the exhibit, Bijin-ga, shifts the focus to Edo’s “fashionable beauties.” Geisha, bathers, and hostesses don their makeup or remove their robes, chat with each other or gaze into mirrors, and relax outside their workplaces or take seaside strolls. A close look at their kimono reveals stunningly intricate patterns. Their possessions and surroundings hint at Edo’s vast marketplaces and vibrant consumer culture, and at the goods and services that were coveted and accessible in Japan’s booming capital. One of my favorite surprises was a rare print by Hokusai in the shape of a folding fan. Since it was meant to attach to a fan and would have become heavily creased through regular use, few examples survive.

This temporary exhibit has drawn admirers from across the UT community, including art students, textile makers, and students of Japanese language and history. This is the Blanton’s first Japan-focused exhibit in many years, and when it finishes its run, the prints will return to their permanent home at the Worcester Museum in Massachusetts. To preserve their color, the prints can only go on display for a few months at a stretch and only three times in a 10-year period. To see so many in one place and so well-arranged and annotated is a singular experience. Look in on the floating world while it lasts.

David A. Conrad received his Ph.D. from UT Austin in 2016 and published his first book, Akira Kurosawa and Modern Japan, in 2022. He is currently working on a second book, which will also focus on postwar Japan. David lived in Japan’s Miyagi prefecture for three years and can’t wait to go back to his home away from home.

Review of The Devil’s Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee by Stewart Lee Allen (1999)

Inspired by a never-finished ceremonial cup of coffee in Ethiopia and a Jules Michelet quote attributing the Enlightenment to the advent of coffee, author Stewart Lee Allen dives head-first into a voyage across the world to trace the path coffee took out of Africa. In The Devil’s Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee, Allen weaves the history of coffee in between his eccentric tales of travel. A self-proclaimed “addict” himself, Allen argues that the coffee bean’s integration into our daily lives has been central to the flourishing of human civilization, from intellectual innovations in the Arabic world to the political revolutions of the West.

Allen focuses on the role of coffee in culture, politics, spirituality, and trade. Coffee’s link to spirituality is explored throughout the first half of the book. The journey begins in Harrar, Ethiopia, where it is believed that the cultivation of the aromatic Coffea Arabica species began. Allen attends a traditional ritual from the Oromo tribe – an exorcism in which coffee beans are roasted, chewed, and then brewed to release the power of the priest. In what follows, Allen attempts to visit the alleged home of al-Shadhili in al-Makkha (Yemen), the Muslim idol who is rumored to have invented brewing coffee beans for drinking in 1200 C.E. Allen stresses how a group of traveling Islamic orders called Sufis incorporated coffee into their spiritual practices and contributed to its spread beyond North Africa. In Turkey, Allen traces the roots of contemporary coffee consumption habits and takes the story up to coffee’s introduction to Europe.

A depiction of a late eighteenth-century Ottoman coffeehouse in Istanbul.
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Allen’s primary argument rests upon the social and historical impact of the coffee shop to prove his thesis. Previously centered around drinking in taverns, European society lacked a common space for sober socialization. A drunk mass, consuming beer as though it was water, led to a less efficient, intellectual, and healthy population. Coffeehouses became multi-functional public spaces that facilitated a multitude of historical moments. They were the original meeting spots of choice for business powerhouses like Lloyd’s of London and the East India Company. As well, these cafés served as spaces for intellectual dialogue, where scientists like Isaac Newton or philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau were known to frequent. Allen even states that in being a site for political organizing, the cafés of Paris were central to the French Revolution. As he himself admits, some of Allen’s claims are bold. For example, he suggests that this stimulant pushed the Ottoman empire to success, created Great Britain’s drive for dominance, contributed to Napoleon’s fall, and even helped the Sons of Liberty attain independence from the British.

*A coffee vendor in Paris during the 18th century. Source: Wikimedia Commons.*

After Allen’s long discussion of Europe, we find the author distracted from his “history of the world according to coffee” and focusing more on storytelling. He continues his narration of Gabriel De Clieu’s fabled introduction of the coffee bean to the New World until he arrives in Brazil. The focus here is on the link between coffee and the horrors of Brazilian slavery. In wondering if the slave trade brought with it coffee’s spiritual origins in the Zar cults of eastern Africa, he finds himself participating in an Afro-Brazilian ritual where coffee beans are left as an offering to summon a spirit named Preto Velho.

The final stretch of the author’s trek takes him to the United States. Following Route 66, Allen seeks the quintessential cup of coffee, i.e., a foul but “soulful” cup of drip, ever flowing thanks to the attentiveness of a kind all-American waitress. After finding himself at the mercy of several Tennessee cops and countless stops at roadside chain restaurants and diners, he heads home to Los Angeles. The book fades out in ephedrine and caffeine-induced haze, where the author gives his final ruminations on the substance: “…Each age had used the bean according to its understanding of reality…We citizens of the brave new world, who worship efficiency and speed, are just turning it into a high, another way to go a little faster, get there a bit quicker and feel a little better. Only there’s nowhere left to go” (p. 223).

Xpresso Drive Thru Cafe, Denver, Colorado.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by John Margolies, call number LC-MA05- 7312

Allen’s book is fast-paced, entertaining, and easy to read. But this assessment comes with significant reservations. While there is certainly truth to many of these claims, I suspect that the author has overstated the role of coffee. Some of his work seemed to shade into fiction, a problem for a book that claims to be factual. There was a minimal inclusion of dates and citations, which made it more difficult for me to take what he was saying seriously. The timeline felt fuzzy, and occasionally, facts seemed poorly researched. For example, Allen argues that coffee’s 13^th-century arrival in al-Makkha not only aided the intellectual advancements of the Islamic world but allowed their civilization to “flourish beyond all others”. Many historians consider the Islamic Golden Age to have occurred from the 8^th to the 13^th centuries.[1] Coffee reached this region during a period of decline for some of these older empires, and the flourishing of the Ottoman Empire that Allen points to was yet to come for a couple of centuries.[2]

The book often reads more like a travelogue than historical literature. Many of his side discussions felt aimless, almost like reading someone’s inner monologue. Allen’s sardonic tone was humorous at times but occasionally felt obnoxious. His characterization of some of the Middle Eastern and Indian people he met during his journey seemed to evoke Orientalist tropes. The author’s insensitivity may be attributed to the age of the book, which is now twenty-five years old, but it makes the work feel dated. Some descriptions were deeply problematic, for instance, Allen’s description of India: “Most people do not associate India with coffee. Disorganized, dirty, undereducated, lazy, muddled, poor, and run-down – not to mention superstitious – it is clearly a nation of tea drinkers” (p. 76).

book cover for "the devil's cup: a history of the world according to coffee."

Despite these criticisms, The Devil’s Cup is an interesting and accessible read for those looking to learn more about the origins of one of the world’s most beloved beverages. The sections focused on presenting historical information and analysis were well-written and drew my attention. There were a handful of lines that struck me for their beauty. Allen knows how to paint a scene, and his colorful descriptions of coffee often made me crave a cup. Here’s just one example: “It proved to be the first all-American joe we’d found – black, tarry, and powerful, rich with half-and-half, cascading in waves from the waitress’ Pyrex coffeepot and into our mugs, breaking over us, washing through our veins like rocket fuel. It was awful and terrifying beyond compare” (p. 220). While the book has flaws, Allen’s story remains a unique, light-hearted whirlwind of a read. And if you love coffee, The Devil’s Cup will likely make you cherish your morning cup even more.

Alexandra Tipps is a senior in the College of Liberal Arts, currently working toward her B.A. in History and Sociology. She hopes to pursue a Ph.D. in History with a focus on modern Latin America.

[1] Steve Tamari, 2009. “Between the ‘Golden Age’ and the Renaissance: Islamic Higher Education in Eighteenth-Century Damascus.” In Trajectories of Education in the Islamic World, edited by Osama Abi-Mershed (Routledge: 2009): 36

[2] Şahin, Kaya. Empire and Power in the Reign of Süleyman: Narrating the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman World / Kaya Şahin, Indiana University (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 7-8

The Public Archive: The Paperwork of Slavery

Millions of tweets and millions of state documents. Intimate oral histories and international radio addresses. Ancient pottery and yesterday’s memes. Historians have access to this immense store of online material for doing research, but what else can we do with it? In Spring 2018, graduate students in the Public and Digital History Seminar at UT Austin experimented with ways to make interesting archival materials available and useful to the public; to anyone with access to a computer. Over the Summer, Not Even Past will feature each of these individual projects.

Slave passes were an early form of racialized surveillance, small pieces of paper with the power to decide where black men and women could travel, who they could meet, and whether they might be subject to violence. Digitized by Galia Sims, The documents in “Guards and Pickets: Paperwork of Slavery” provide a glimpse into the paperwork created to control the movement and relationships of the enslaved, like passes, jail fees, marriage certificates, patrol invoices.

More on Sims’ project and The Public Archive here.

You may also like:

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh by Daina Ramey Berry
Missing Signatures: The Archives at First Glance by Alina Scott
The Illegal Slave Trade in Texas, 1808-1865 by Maria Hammack

The Public Archive: Sicilian-American Puppetry

Megan McQuaid’s digital project, titled “Animating Italian Immigration: Sicilian-American Puppetry”, sheds light on the vibrant world of Sicilian puppet theater, or opera dei pupi, in Italian-American immigrant communities through digitized newspaper clippings, posters, programs, and photographs of marionettes.

More on McQuaid’s project and The Public Archive here.

You may also like:

Yael Schacher discusses “A View From the Bridge” (Directed by Sidney Lumet, 1962)
New Digital Technologies Bring Ancient Roman Villa to Life by John Clarke
Domesticating Ethnic Foods and Becoming American by Madeline Hsu

The Public Archive: Woven Into History

Alina Scott‘s project, titled Woven into History, is a digitized collection of nineteenth and twentieth-century Navajo rugs currently on exhibit at the Blanton Museum of Art. In addition to photographs of the rugs themselves, Woven into History also provides a brief history of the Navajo and lesson plans to contextualize the collection and provide a platform for respectful collaboration and discussion.

More on Scott’s project and the Public Archive here.

Also by Alina Scott on Not Even Past:

Cynthia Attaquin and a Wampanoag Network of Petitioners
Missing Signatures: The Archives at First Glance

You may also like:

A Historian’s Gaze: Women, Law, and the Colonial Archives in Singapore by Sandy Chang
Secrecy and Bureaucratic Distancing: Tracing Complaints through the Guatemalan National Police Historical Archive by Vasken Markarian
Justin Heath reviews Peace Came in the Form of a Woman by Juliana Barr (2007)

Colonial Chalices: Colonial Latin America Through Objects (No. 4)

Chalice (Cáliz) Mexico City, 1575-1578 (via LACMA)

This series features five online museum exhibits created by undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin for a class titled “Colonial Latin America Through Objects.” The class assumes that Latin America was never a continent onto itself. The course also insists that objects document the nature of historical change in ways written archives alone cannot.

Lillian Michel’s exhibit focuses on colonial chalices, one of the most sacred objects of the Eucharist. Unlike many other colonial objects that incorporated indigenous techniques and materials, silversmiths charged with the production of chalices were strictly regulated. There was little room for the incorporation of indigenous materials, let alone indigenous religious sensibilities. Chalices therefore can better document the arrival of new European styles in art and architecture than changes in indigenous traditions.

More from the Colonial Latin America Through Objects series:

Of Merchants and Nature by Diana Heredia López
Nanban Art by John Monsour
Andean Tapestry by Irene Smith

You may also like:

Abisai Pérez Zamarripa reviews Indigenous Intellectuals: Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes
Brittany Erwin walks us through the National Museum of Anthropology in San Salvador
Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra reviews Jerónimo Antonio Gil and the Idea of the Spanish Enlightenment

Nanban Art: Colonial Latin America Through Objects (No. 2)

(via Wikimedia Commons)

John Monsour’s exhibit on Nanban screenfolds exemplify the deep connections of the colonial Americas to early-modern Japan. Portuguese Jesuits and merchants arrived in southern Japan in the mid-sixteenth century with commodities from India, Europe, and the Americas and with hundreds of Luso-Africans. The foreigners were called “Nanban” (barbarians from the south). The Jesuits gained a foothold with Japanese lords that led to the massive conversions of commoners and nobles. Jesuits and Japanese artisan established workshops that produced many Nanban objects, including screenfolds documenting new European cosmographies. The maps also document the introduction of Chinese-Korean maps. Monsour’s exhibit shows the maps on Edo workshops led by Jesuit and the new cosmographies they engendered.

More from the Colonial Latin America Through Objects series:

Of Merchants and Nature by Diana Heredia López

You may also like:

Brittany Erwin reviews The Archaeology and History of Colonial Mexico by Enrique Rodriguez Alegría
Acapulco-Manila: the Galleon, Asia, and Latin America, 1565-1815 by Kristie Flannery
Purchasing Whiteness: Race and Status in Colonial Latin America by Ann Twinam

The Archaeology and History of Colonial Mexico by Enrique Rodríguez Alegría (2016)

In this study of the social significance of material culture in Mexico City and Xaltocan in the early colonial period, Rodriguez Alegría uses a variety of sources, including archaeological evidence relating to food consumption, catalogues of ceramic sherds from several dig sites in these cities, and wills, stock lists, and auction records. His use of archaeological data and historical records together reveals the benefits of incorporating disparate kinds of evidence: the archaeological data on food and material consumption filled in the blanks of historical records, which often leave out explicit descriptions of such daily practices.

The works of historians and anthropologists frequently overlap in theme and subject, however, the two disciplines gather and use evidence differently. Rodríguez Alegría argues that such differences should not stand in the way of interdisciplinary investigations. His main contribution is a discussion of the ways scholars conceptualize their methodologies. He asserts that in an interdisciplinary study, there should not be a contest over which kind of evidence is more worthwhile. Rather, researchers should pay careful attention to the implications of the interpretative strategies they use.

Part of what makes his methodology innovative is his acceptance of the inherent incommensurability of archaeological and historical evidence. He outlines common interpretative strategies used in each of these disciplines, openly acknowledging the differences between them. For archaeologists, analogical reasoning is common because it allows them to utilize “known behaviors in the present” in order to shed light on “unknown behaviors [of] the past.” Historians, on the other hand, tend to conceptualize evidence from their documents as synecdoches, “where qualities or practices found in a document or a few documents are replicated to stand for wider processes or patterns in a society.”

In his openness to the contradictions that result from simultaneously using these distinct methods, Rodríguez Alegría creates a provocative rejection of the established practice of seeking an uncontested line of reasoning. He asserts that the incorporation of more evidence fundamentally creates a more nuanced understanding, even if all the pieces do not come together to neatly form a single image. As a result, both the synecdoche favored by historians and the analogy used in anthropology have their place in a single work.

Rodríguez Alegría provides numerous examples of the benefits of interdisciplinarity, including his illustration of how quantitative and qualitative analysis of pottery fragments combine with historical data on markets and production methods to reveal new understanding of of the role of pottery in these cultures. In that sense, the writing and presentation style achieves the important goal of encouraging cross-disciplinary understanding.

The most compelling aspect of this work is the author’s insistence that scholars redirect their attention towards a more critical analysis of how they interpret their evidence. Forcing this awareness about discipline-determined approaches to data analysis promises new insights, but it also presents potential problems. At some point, scholars have to assert a coherent narrative, or at least a conceptual image, of the phenomenon under investigation. That process inherently requires a selection of relevant information. If scholars choose to incorporate apparently contradictory data collected outside of their discipline, they could face criticism for knowingly promoting an argument that goes against some of the data. It is possible that the scholarly community as a whole would resist this approach because of the widely ingrained attachment to uncontested narratives that Rodríguez Alegría criticizes.

This work prompts an important reexamination of disciplinary divisions and approaches to the interpretation of evidence. It fundamentally brings the question of what makes a document representative of a larger phenomenon to the forefront of historical analysis. Furthermore, it encourages scholars to think about how their investigation engages with contextual information from unwritten sources. Overall, Rodríguez Alegría’s book opens up an important discussion on the value of questioning the validity of even the most standardized interpretive strategies. As he points out, establishing a narrative is fundamental for historians because of its apparent utility in illustrating change over time. It is also, however, a method that reflects our aesthetic preference for presenting information this way. Both historians and anthropologists must, therefore, aim to break down barriers that would prevent the fruitful sharing of methodologies between disciplines.

Also by Brittany Erwin on Not Even Past:

The Museo Regional de Oriente in San Miguel, El Salvador
The National Museum of Anthropology in in San Salvador

You may also like:

Haley Schroer reviews Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico by Daniel Nemser (2017)
Explore Diana Heredia’s virtual exhibition “Of Merchants and Nature: Colonial Latin America through Objects”
Ann Twinam reviews No Mere Shadows: Faces of Widowhood in Early Colonial Mexico by Shirley Cushing Flint (2013)

Recent Posts