Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
The core of my intellectual project has been to demonstrate the deep formative role of "Latin America” to the colonial history of the USA and to the history of "Western" modernity as a whole, not just slavery, globalization, and capitalism but also science, abolitionism, and democracy. This for me is a central issue of our times, particularly since I consider that Trump’s wall has been made with bricks baked in the ovens of historiography.
I consider that historiographical categories such as the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Atlantic Age of Revolutions not only illuminate but silence large areas of the human experience. The category of the Enlightenment, for example, assumes that modernity emerged out the "Republic of Letters" and a "public sphere" that readers and writers conducted vicariously in cafes through newspapers and print culture. Working in tandem, these set of categories have blocked our understanding of forms of radical modernity in Spanish America in which knowledge was generated through petitions in manuscript and often in secret. Entire libraries of new anthropological, physical, geographical, mineralogical, and botanical knowledge that changed the world were produced this way. In numerous books and papers, I have explored the active ways in which many other historiographical categories have rendered invisible the intellectual communities of the global south.
I am the author of How to Write the History of the New World (Stanford 2001--translated into Spanish and Portuguese); Puritan Conquistadors (Stanford 2006; translated into Spanish); Nature, Empire, and Nation (Stanford 2007). I have edited or coedited the following books: Entangled Empires and Severed Archives: Anglo-Iberian Atlantic Worlds 1500-1830; The Atlantic in Global History, 1500-2000, 2nd edition (with Erik Seeman); The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade (with Jim Sidbury and Matt Childs); Princeton Handbook of Atlantic History (with Joseph C. Miller, general editor, Vincent Brown, Laurent Dubois & Karen Ordhal Kupperman, associate editors);As Américas na Primeira Modernidade (1492 - 1750) (with Luiz Estevam de O. Fernandes e Maria Cristina Bohn Martins);Encounters between Jesuits and Protestants in Asia and the Americas (with Robert Maryks and Ronnie Po-chia Hsia). I have a forthcoming book with Harvard University Press, co-authored with Adrian Masters, The Radical Spanish Empire: Petitions and the Creation of the New World.
I consider that historiographical categories such as the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Atlantic Age of Revolutions not only illuminate but silence large areas of the human experience. The category of the Enlightenment, for example, assumes that modernity emerged out the "Republic of Letters" and a "public sphere" that readers and writers conducted vicariously in cafes through newspapers and print culture. Working in tandem, these set of categories have blocked our understanding of forms of radical modernity in Spanish America in which knowledge was generated through petitions in manuscript and often in secret. Entire libraries of new anthropological, physical, geographical, mineralogical, and botanical knowledge that changed the world were produced this way. In numerous books and papers, I have explored the active ways in which many other historiographical categories have rendered invisible the intellectual communities of the global south.
I am the author of How to Write the History of the New World (Stanford 2001--translated into Spanish and Portuguese); Puritan Conquistadors (Stanford 2006; translated into Spanish); Nature, Empire, and Nation (Stanford 2007). I have edited or coedited the following books: Entangled Empires and Severed Archives: Anglo-Iberian Atlantic Worlds 1500-1830; The Atlantic in Global History, 1500-2000, 2nd edition (with Erik Seeman); The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade (with Jim Sidbury and Matt Childs); Princeton Handbook of Atlantic History (with Joseph C. Miller, general editor, Vincent Brown, Laurent Dubois & Karen Ordhal Kupperman, associate editors);As Américas na Primeira Modernidade (1492 - 1750) (with Luiz Estevam de O. Fernandes e Maria Cristina Bohn Martins);Encounters between Jesuits and Protestants in Asia and the Americas (with Robert Maryks and Ronnie Po-chia Hsia). I have a forthcoming book with Harvard University Press, co-authored with Adrian Masters, The Radical Spanish Empire: Petitions and the Creation of the New World.
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Books by Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
the history of science in the early modern and nineteenth-century Iberian
world. “Science” is a problematic word when it comes to describing early
modern learned perceptions of nature. The term only began to take on
the sense in which we use it now in the early eighteenth century, and it
does not do justice to the ideas and practices of the early modern world, for many of the historical actors the reader will encounter in these pages were alchemists, not chemists, curiosity collectors, not biologists, astrologers, not astronomers, landscape artists, not geologists, and polymaths rather than specialists. “Iberia” is also a somewhat misleading term: the essays here are about the viceroyalties that made up the early modern Spanish empire and the new nineteenth-century national polities that succeeded them. This was a world with many conflicting interpretations of nature, and I have focused on only a handful here. On the one hand, I explore the metropolitan, instrumental imperial perspectives. Whether it is the seventeenth or the nineteenth century, I identify styles of science that were imperial and had a long-lasting influence on other European empires, the narrative of the so-called Scientific Revolution notwithstanding. On the other hand, I explore interpretations of nature that were “patriotic”—that is, that sought to defend the Spanish American viceroyalties or new emerging nations from European innuendos.
Papers by Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra
a un lado primero el significado moderno de dicho término. En
la modernidad temprana los cuerpos eran considerados extraordinariamente maleables, hasta unos límites que hoy nos resultan
completamente ajenos. Los cuerpos podían cambiar con facilidad
sometidos a la influencia de demonios, del clima, de la dieta, de los astros o incluso de la imaginación materna. En consecuencia, como indica el
caso del Imperio español, una vez creadas, las etiquetas raciales
eran hasta cierto punto volátiles; eran el simple reflejo de una determinada
posición social, no el registro de la ascendencia biológica. Por ello, el reto al que se enfrenta el investigador es el de comprender la transformación del concepto de cuerpo en el curso de la modernidad temprana. En algún momento y en algún lugar, súbitamente, los cuerpos se tornaron inmutables, empezaron a representarse de una forma distinta, siendo fijados por el mecanismo de su herencia biológica a la categoría ontológica de raza. La tesis de un cuerpo maleable permaneció
activa. Serían necesarios los cambios fundamentales acaecidos a lo largo del siglo xviii para que poco a poco desapareciera la idea del cuerpo como una arcilla moldeable, susceptible de cambiar ante la presión de fuerzas exógenas.
A partir de 1808, sinembargo, junto a las despiadadas críticas a la ignorancia del sabio y su falta de credibilidad como ave de paso, empezó a ganar cada vez más crédito una narrativa de un regímen colonial oscurantista y una sociedad aislada e ignorante. Humboldt empezó a aparecer como segundo Colón, primer descubridor, esta vez, de la ciencia americana.
Esta es la receta para la creación del mito de un genio: Humboldt fue un mago en el aprovechamiento de la información burocrática y supo cómo transformarla en una treintena de volúmenes impresos y replicados por la prensa. Mientras tanto, las críticas al trabajo de Humboldt quedaron ocultas, corriendo por los pasillos grises de la burocracia. El resultado fue una república que olvidó el legado de sus instituciones coloniales al tiempo que cincelaba las estatuas del gran sabio prusiano..
ideológico e historiográfico de las nuevas naciones hispanoamericanas
y en parte de la definición misma de «Latino» América. En la Ilustración española surgió una definición de «España» como integradora de razas cuya prioridad, más que el crecimiento comercial de las colonias, fue el transformar «bárbaros» en vecinos, cristianos y «españoles». La prioridad de la corona, de acuerdo con esa interpretación, no fue enriquecer a los colonos, sino financiara la Iglesia Católica para transformar en reducciones y misiones a los «salvajes» de todas las fronteras. En contraste con británicos y norteamericanos, lo que hacía a alguien español en las Indias no era su raza, sino su forma de vivir en sociedad y su religión.
His feats were so incredible to readers that large numbers of those who attended the events gave notarized testimonies confirming their validity. In 1632, Naranjo showed up unannounced at a contest for a vacant chair in Theology at the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, founded in 1551. When the judging tribunal asked Naranjo to elaborate on a passage of Aquinas' Summa, Naranjo did one better. He had the complete works of Aquinas brought to the stage and asked the tribunal to randomly pick a sentence within any paragraph. Naranjo would recite the rest of the page. Naranjo repeated the trick for hours, as faculty gathered around the spectacle. Although he did not get the job because candidates were also required to offer personal learned glosses on Aquinas, Naranjo showed that he could not only recite Aquinas verbatim but also any available printed commentary on the Dominican. To the amazement of everyone, Naranjo repeated the show in a new faculty search in 1636"
Pouring over hundreds of notarized witness accounts, Cordova Salinas reconstructed the peregrinating life of Solano, from his birthplace in 1549 in Montilla (Andalusia) to this deathbed in 1610 in Lima. Solano was a new Francis and Lima a new Assisi. Lima did one better than Rome: Lima was a continental pilgrimage site for the sick around the relics of a singing violin."
the history of science in the early modern and nineteenth-century Iberian
world. “Science” is a problematic word when it comes to describing early
modern learned perceptions of nature. The term only began to take on
the sense in which we use it now in the early eighteenth century, and it
does not do justice to the ideas and practices of the early modern world, for many of the historical actors the reader will encounter in these pages were alchemists, not chemists, curiosity collectors, not biologists, astrologers, not astronomers, landscape artists, not geologists, and polymaths rather than specialists. “Iberia” is also a somewhat misleading term: the essays here are about the viceroyalties that made up the early modern Spanish empire and the new nineteenth-century national polities that succeeded them. This was a world with many conflicting interpretations of nature, and I have focused on only a handful here. On the one hand, I explore the metropolitan, instrumental imperial perspectives. Whether it is the seventeenth or the nineteenth century, I identify styles of science that were imperial and had a long-lasting influence on other European empires, the narrative of the so-called Scientific Revolution notwithstanding. On the other hand, I explore interpretations of nature that were “patriotic”—that is, that sought to defend the Spanish American viceroyalties or new emerging nations from European innuendos.
a un lado primero el significado moderno de dicho término. En
la modernidad temprana los cuerpos eran considerados extraordinariamente maleables, hasta unos límites que hoy nos resultan
completamente ajenos. Los cuerpos podían cambiar con facilidad
sometidos a la influencia de demonios, del clima, de la dieta, de los astros o incluso de la imaginación materna. En consecuencia, como indica el
caso del Imperio español, una vez creadas, las etiquetas raciales
eran hasta cierto punto volátiles; eran el simple reflejo de una determinada
posición social, no el registro de la ascendencia biológica. Por ello, el reto al que se enfrenta el investigador es el de comprender la transformación del concepto de cuerpo en el curso de la modernidad temprana. En algún momento y en algún lugar, súbitamente, los cuerpos se tornaron inmutables, empezaron a representarse de una forma distinta, siendo fijados por el mecanismo de su herencia biológica a la categoría ontológica de raza. La tesis de un cuerpo maleable permaneció
activa. Serían necesarios los cambios fundamentales acaecidos a lo largo del siglo xviii para que poco a poco desapareciera la idea del cuerpo como una arcilla moldeable, susceptible de cambiar ante la presión de fuerzas exógenas.
A partir de 1808, sinembargo, junto a las despiadadas críticas a la ignorancia del sabio y su falta de credibilidad como ave de paso, empezó a ganar cada vez más crédito una narrativa de un regímen colonial oscurantista y una sociedad aislada e ignorante. Humboldt empezó a aparecer como segundo Colón, primer descubridor, esta vez, de la ciencia americana.
Esta es la receta para la creación del mito de un genio: Humboldt fue un mago en el aprovechamiento de la información burocrática y supo cómo transformarla en una treintena de volúmenes impresos y replicados por la prensa. Mientras tanto, las críticas al trabajo de Humboldt quedaron ocultas, corriendo por los pasillos grises de la burocracia. El resultado fue una república que olvidó el legado de sus instituciones coloniales al tiempo que cincelaba las estatuas del gran sabio prusiano..
ideológico e historiográfico de las nuevas naciones hispanoamericanas
y en parte de la definición misma de «Latino» América. En la Ilustración española surgió una definición de «España» como integradora de razas cuya prioridad, más que el crecimiento comercial de las colonias, fue el transformar «bárbaros» en vecinos, cristianos y «españoles». La prioridad de la corona, de acuerdo con esa interpretación, no fue enriquecer a los colonos, sino financiara la Iglesia Católica para transformar en reducciones y misiones a los «salvajes» de todas las fronteras. En contraste con británicos y norteamericanos, lo que hacía a alguien español en las Indias no era su raza, sino su forma de vivir en sociedad y su religión.
His feats were so incredible to readers that large numbers of those who attended the events gave notarized testimonies confirming their validity. In 1632, Naranjo showed up unannounced at a contest for a vacant chair in Theology at the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, founded in 1551. When the judging tribunal asked Naranjo to elaborate on a passage of Aquinas' Summa, Naranjo did one better. He had the complete works of Aquinas brought to the stage and asked the tribunal to randomly pick a sentence within any paragraph. Naranjo would recite the rest of the page. Naranjo repeated the trick for hours, as faculty gathered around the spectacle. Although he did not get the job because candidates were also required to offer personal learned glosses on Aquinas, Naranjo showed that he could not only recite Aquinas verbatim but also any available printed commentary on the Dominican. To the amazement of everyone, Naranjo repeated the show in a new faculty search in 1636"
Pouring over hundreds of notarized witness accounts, Cordova Salinas reconstructed the peregrinating life of Solano, from his birthplace in 1549 in Montilla (Andalusia) to this deathbed in 1610 in Lima. Solano was a new Francis and Lima a new Assisi. Lima did one better than Rome: Lima was a continental pilgrimage site for the sick around the relics of a singing violin."
Indigenous residential dispersal, conversion via the ideology of cities ultimately empowered Indigenous commoners as well. The republica de indios was nothing but the expansion of the urban ideal to commoners, via the control of newly carved-out commons and cabildo elections. The new social contracts of the Indies allowed for extraordinary levels of social mobility, at least in the sixteenth century. Republicanism allowed for the rapid spread of the Spanish empire all over the Indies."
Recently I published a review of Gabe Paquette's European Seaborne Empires. I ended my review with a suggestion of white supremacy. It was as wrong as it was unfair. Paquette, of all people, has made a point of bringing Latin America scholarship (particularly Luso and Spanish American) into the view of Anglophone academia. I have changed the ending of my review in social media and forthcoming print publication to take away all innuendo without giving up what I consider is a fair critique.
Soriano demonstrates that coastal Venezuela suffered profound transformations in the wake of the French Revolution in the Caribbean.Unlike Cuba, Soriano argues, Venezuela shut down the traffic of slaves to avoid potential contagion. Venezuela witnessed a permanent reduction of the traffic by more than 90 % for the rest of this decade and the next (120 per year instead of 1500).Soriano shows how these cities witnessed intense, new political mobilization, particularly by free blacks who found in barbershops, houses, and pulperias (grocery stores) institutional alternatives to colleges and universities to acquire literacy and educate their children. Soriano depicts thriving, alternative urban and rural public spheres of free blacks and slaves who gained access to newspapers, songs, hymns, pamphlets, and even manuscripts by local letrados, tailored to the needs of these audiences
For all his analytical strengths, Feros leaves too many paradoxes unexplained. By the seventeenth-century, Andalusians (massive numbers of whom were descendants of Amerindian, Canarian, Morisco, and Sub-Saharan Africans slaves) could claim to be Christian, ‘white’, and ‘European’ without embarrassment. So too could the obviously ‘mestizo’ inhabitants of the Canaries. Why were certain regions in the monarchy more easily incorporated into the common discourse of the nation than others? Feros glosses over the importance of discourse of common biblical descent (form Tubal, Noah’s grandson) in the creation of the fiction of Spain. After 1555, the conquered Navarrese used the discourse of Tubal and purity of descent to demand the privileges of naturaleza as a co-equal kingdom of the monarchy. The Basques went one over. They became the only pure descendants of the original lineage of Tubal. As the Basque cornered the market of ‘Spanishness’, Charles V decreed in 1526 that even Basque commoners should enjoy the noble status of hidalgos and the legal right to settle in any kingdom as naturales.”
Andrea Wulf’s book The Invention of Nature tells the story of Alexander von Humboldt, one of the world’s most important nineteenth-century explorers. Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra talks about some of the problems of the book, specifically how Wulf’s view of Humboldt divorces him from the intellectual traditions of Central and South American scholars who helped Humboldt imagine the Americas for European and North American readers. Cañizares-Esguerra is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of many books including How to Write the History of the New World: Histories, Epistemologies, and Identities in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World.
In the late 1500s, the mines of Potosí –a mountain in southern Bolivia — produced 60% of the world’s silver. It was a place of great wealth and terrible suffering. It is also a place, Jorge Canizares-Esguerra argues, that challenges the very idea of the Scientific Revolution.
http://historyhub.ie/jorge-canizares-esguerra-old-testament-culture-spanish-monarchy-sixteenth-and-seventeenth-centuries
It is time, however, to consider new genealogies for Europe’s early modern scholarship.
Workshop at University of Texas at Austin, Nov 21-22, 2014
The emphasis of this volume is to explore the ways in which ideas, commodities, and peoples circulated across the formal boundaries of empires and nations. The flows moved in both directions and changed over time, forming the connective tissue between peoples and spaces across the Atlantic world. In the sixteenth century, Spain and Portugal clearly served as a model (and counter-model) to the English (and British) on how to go about establishing colonies in the New World and Africa. By the eighteenth century, however, it was Spain and Portugal that aspired to imitate the British. Or so goes the consensus. But was the matter so simple? This conference asks how Spain, Britain, and Portugal shaped one another throughout the entire period, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Beyond knowledge production, the economies of these empires were interconnected from the very outset, through smuggling, piracy, and the slave trade. Entanglement was not merely a process driving events on the periphery. The cores of European empires were as entangled as any space in an American borderland. It is the purpose of this workshop to view these societies within a single unit of analysis—not comparatively
Proyecto I+D+i de Excelencia del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad "En los bordes del archivo: escrituras periféricas, escrituras efímeras en los virreinatos de Indias" (ELBA)
Fundación General CSIC
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Casa de América