Call for Papers 41st ASECS Annual Meeting Albuquerque, NM March 18-21, 2010

Session Title: Tradition and Innovation in Northern New Spain: Revisiting Eighteenth-Century New Mexico

Session Description: Although Spanish exploration in New Mexico began in the late sixteenth century, Albuquerque—site of the ASECS conference in 2010—was founded in the early eighteenth century. Yet eighteenth-century New Mexico is often overlooked in either regional studies or larger histories involving Spanish America. Couched between the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and the American occupation of New Mexico in 1846, eighteenth-century New Mexico is sometimes described as the periphery of the frontier: both culturally and economically distant from the wealthy mining town of Zacatecas and the viceregal capital of Mexico City. This interdisciplinary session explores eighteenth-century New Mexico as a varied and complex region, a confluence of both tradition and innovation in Spanish America. Proposals are sought from scholars with an interest in historical accounts, religious hagiography, Spanish settlement, native communities, religious life, and material culture. Possible topics may include the historically rich visitor accounts and their circulation, the formation, ritual practice, and social power of confraternities or penitentes, mendicant activity in Santa Fe and surrounding pueblos, the local production of santos (saintly sculptures) and retablos (exvotos), the construction of sacred spaces such as the churches in Las Trampas and Laguna Pueblo, and the politics and patronage of colonial Santa Fe.

Proposals for papers should be sent directly to the seminar chairs no later than 15 September 2009. Please include your telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address. You should also let the session chair know of any audio-visual needs and special scheduling requests. We actively encourage presentations by younger and untenured scholars.

Session Chair: Cristina Cruz González, Assistant Professor of Art History, Oklahoma State U., 108 Bartlett Center, Stillwater, OK, 74078; Tel: (626) 689-0924; Fax: (405) 744-5767; E-mail: cristina.gonzalez@okstate.edu