Imagining Histories of Colonial Latin America

Imagining Histories of Colonial Latin America is an innovative book that offers a blueprint on how to conduct historical research. Dedicated to William B. Taylor, the book is inspired by his teachings and includes essays on methodology, primarily on how to write history synoptically. In the introduction, Karen Melvin and Sylvia Sellers-García explain that a synoptic approach seeks to understand the past as a combined whole rather than a compilation of facts. In order to grasp the past, the editors recommend thinking about methodology alongside interpreting and writing; they propose to let the source suggest its method. The chapters in the volume walk the reader through the process of understanding one's sources and discerning the best method to analyze and write about them.The book is divided in four parts that include seventeen chapters. The chapters are organized according to not historical subjects or types of methodology but rather the research and writing process. Part 1 centers on the questions we ask sources. Part 2 focuses on the sources themselves and understanding their meaning and context. Part 3 deals with the ways in which we transform our engagement with sources into interpretative histories. Finally, part 4 shows how the histories we write depend as much on the questions we ask the sources as on the approaches we use to analyze them. In this last section, four scholars use their particular interpretation and research interests on the same source—an eighteenth-century handbook for confessors—to model what different research approaches look like.In chapter 1, Melvin invites the researcher to read sources by attending to their many possible meanings and to the connections that exist between the evidence and the circumstances in which they were produced. Chapter 2 problematizes the dichotomies that have prevailed in our understanding of colonial Latin American history, which, as Paul Ramírez states, are present not only in our teaching but in our research. In chapter 3, Nicole von Germeten focuses on a regionalism that goes beyond economic specificities and takes into consideration racial hierarchies, social divides, and spiritual conceptions of space. The last chapter of this first part, by Ivonne del Valle, argues that literary studies (mainly the close reading of texts but also the use of theory) can be useful in approaching historical sources in order to arrive at interpretations that go beyond the basic information included in a document.Part 2 opens with Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara's chapter about the way in which laconic sources can open windows into the lives of our subjects of study. When these sources are placed within their accurate context, even their silences (common in formulaic legal documents) can provide a wealth of information. In chapter 6, Rachel Moore writes about the challenges of using “diffuse documentation” as historical evidence instead of working with a clearly defined group of documents. She suggests anchoring the documents in the foundational concepts that gave rise to the research and establishing linkages between the sources. Sean McEnroe models historical inquiry via the use of objects, specifically a sculpture. He analyzes the role of the artist, the fashioning of the object, and its reception, value, and meaning in its specific context. Lastly, Kristin Huffine suggests studying the colonial subject formation of subalterns by looking at the sources produced by the Catholic Church.The third part of the book begins with José Refugio de la Torre Curiel advising against limiting our view to only two processes: change and continuity. He recommends aiming for a richer perspective on social practices that allows for both. Jessica Delgado warns about the challenges of writing the histories of subjects who appear only marginally in historical documentation, and she points to the need to creatively interpret and imagine the information lacking in order to adequately tell their stories. And in chapter 11, Sylvia Sellers-García gives practical suggestions on choosing a writing style suitable for a particular audience.The last section of the book opens with Matthew O'Hara's chapter, in which he describes the primary source that is then analyzed by four other historians in subsequent chapters and highlights the methodological and epistemological issues that these scholars had to grapple with. Seth Kimmel focuses on the role of narrative and storytelling, Jennifer Scheper Hughes explores the ritual function of the sacrament of penance, Sean McEnroe uses historical comparison in order to place the document accurately over the long colonial period, and Paul Ramírez similarly contextualizes the document and points to the difficulties in interpreting its silences. Chapter 17 consists of the complete document, “Advice and Warnings for New Confessors by a Discalced Carmelite Friar and Priest,” translated by Karen Melvin, Paul Ramírez, and Sylvia Sellers-García.The book closes with a poetic afterword by Kenneth Mills in which he weaves an early childhood memory with the historian's craft. As the editors of the book suggest in their introduction, there is a defining relationship between our pasts and our historiographical work. Imagining Histories in Colonial Latin America is without a doubt a stimulating intellectual exercise that offers a pathway to historical research and writing

Archaeology · Art · Blueprint · Colonialism · Context (archaeology) · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Order (exchange) · Section (typography) · Sociology · Visual arts · Computer Science · Historical Studies in Latin America · History · Philosophy

• Introduction to Latin American Studies and the Humanities

  Open Access•Allison Margaret Bigelow, Thomas Miller Klubock•Latin American Research Review•2018

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