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In empires where the privileged few – those with white skin color, appropriate ancestry (often linked to birth in Castile), and purity of blood – filled positions of power, how did Iberian monarchs in the metropole exert colonial control over diverse and distant regions and people for over three hundred years? For example, during the early era of conquest and colonization in the Spanish American empire, New World-born Spanish creoles, noble indigenous natives, indigenous communities, free and enslaved black individuals, and other colonial subjects far outnumbered native-born Spaniards. The answer lies in a complex brokerage of power and a system of petitions to the monarch, which arguably was more democratic than the often-widely held image of Iberian empires as monolithic, uncompromising, centrally dictating powers. Exploring the workings and logic of imperial institutions of power, local alliances, collaboration between different imperial subjects, and the role of distant monarchs, this advanced seminar explores how these conditions served as fundamental nodes in maintaining and shaping colonial power. Through the lens of social and intellectual histories of empire in the Iberian world, the seminars consider the historiographical debates surrounding how colonial subjects in the Iberian empires – including free Black and indigenous American populations – shaped empire, religion, and science through daily practices and litigation. In weekly seminars, we explore a diverse historiographical landscape that grapples with how indigenous Americans and African Diaspora – both as individuals and communities – responded to the intellectual milieus of empire. For example, seminars consider the historiographical stakes of exploring how colonial subjects – including free Black populations and indigenous Americans – shaped laws through daily practices and by petitioning for rights to royal vassalage in royal courts, while also exploring how they contributed to knowledge formation and ideas about religion, science, and, empire that are often regarded as having emerged from a Western Tradition in Europe. In doing so, we consider key theoretical and historiographical debates concerning knowledge and power, in particular regarding whose thoughts, ideas, and histories become etched into historical memory, while others are marginalized and silenced, and or appropriated. To that end, part of seminar 9 ‘Scientific Knowledge’ will take place in the British Museum.

EXAMPLE OF SEMINAR TOPICS

1ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýOld Worlds / New Worlds. The Iberian World.

2ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýAn Indigenous History Of Conquest. Focus On New Spain

3ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýRace, Slavery, Religion, Global Monarchy IÌýÌý| Key Concept

4ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýRace, Slavery, Religion, Global Monarchy IiÌýÌý| Sixteenth-Century Abolitionism, Africans And Indios.

5ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýPower Vassalage, Law - An Empire Of Petitions?

6ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýDefining, Writing, And Contesting Empire From The Margins: Juan Latino, Guaman Poma, & Diego De Torres

7ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýExpanding Notions Of Colonial Settlers. Urban Life, Race, Religion, Commerce, And Gender

8ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýInquisitions, A Modern Institution?

9 ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýDe-Centering Europe: Scientific Knowledge And Trade

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýSeminar to take place at British MuseumÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

10ÌýÌýÌýCross-Currents Of The Atlantic And Pacific Worlds – Africa, Europe, Asia And The AmericasÌý