Colonial Technologies and the Emergence of Latin America

Session Submission Type: LASA Section Panel

Abstract

1492 witnessed the foundation for the emergence of transoceanic global empires and the beginning of both Spanish and Lusophone America. Fifteenth-century technological inventions like the printing press and the ensuing development of woodcuts and copperplates in the following centuries allowed the expansion of ways of knowing and the dissemination of ideas about the unknown, the unusual, the rare, the exotic. This panel examines instances of technological innovations and transformations during the colonial period that intersected, overlapped, and shaped the colonial emergence of Latin America. Areas of study include technologies related to religion, literacy, communication, botany, and mining.

Sub Track

• Section Sessions

Session Organizer

• Rocío Quispe-Agnoli, Michigan State University

Chair

• Rocío Quispe-Agnoli, Michigan State University

Discussant

• Caroline R Egan, University of Cambridge

Individual Presentations

• Religión y tecné: del arte de construirse un ídolo y/o un mártir - Esperanza López Parada, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

• Indigenous Technologies of Language and Writing: Voice and Image in New Spain - Kelly S McDonough, University of Texas at Austin

• Biomedical Technology: The Extraction of Balsam and the Welsers’ Secret Lab in the Province of Venezuela” (1528-1556) - Giovanna Montenegro, Binghamton University

• Copper Smelting and Charcoal Making: Technology and Knowledge Transfer in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Cuba - Handy Acosta, Tulane University