Iberian Expansion Through the Looking Glass: One World or Many?

The conquerors, missionaries, and historians who reflected on Iberian overseas expansion during the early modern period often asked themselves a crucial question: was there only one world or many? Were the Americas a 'New World,' unknown to the ancients, entirely detached from the rest of human history? Even after the invasion and occupation of the Americas, many European chroniclers continued to think that the world was divided into three parts - Europe, Asia, and Africa. In their descriptions of the Americas, they drew heavily on histories and travel reports pertaining to other epochs and locales, especially contemporary Asia and ancient Rome. At the same time, indigenous elites and mestizo authors in the Americas used 'Old World' history and news of distant conflicts to reflect on the immediacy of their historical experience. In this course, students will consider the ways in which diverse authors in New Spain (Mexico), Peru, and Brazil contemplated themselves in relation to remote times and places: from Greco-Roman Antiquity to Lutheran Germany, the Ottoman Mediterranean to the Apocalyptic End of Times. Students will analyze the many reflections, distortions, inversions, translations, uncanny resemblances, and strange parallel dimensions that resulted from these intellectual experiments. Primary sources include chronicles, poetry, theater, Afro-Catholic festivals, pictographic codices, feather mosaics, and maps. All texts offered in the original language and in English translation whenever possible. For graduate students and advanced undergraduates.