After the conquest of Mexico, colonial authorities attempted to enforce Christian beliefs among indigenous peoples—a project they envisioned as spiritual warfare. The Invisible War assesses this immense but dislocated project by examining all known efforts in Central Mexico to obliterate native devotions of Mesoamerican origin between the 1530s and the late eighteenth century. The author's innovative interpretation of these efforts is punctuated by three events: the creation of an Inquisition tribunal in Mexico in 1571; the native rebellion of Tehuantepec in 1660; and the emergence of eerily modern strategies for isolating idolaters, teaching Spanish to natives, and obtaining medical proof of sorcery from the 1720s onwards. Rather than depicting native devotions solely from the viewpoint of their colonial codifiers, this book rescues indigenous perspectives on their own beliefs. This is achieved by an analysis of previously unknown or rare ritual texts that circulated in secrecy in Nahua and Zapotec communities through an astute appropriation of European literacy. Tavárez contends that native responses gave rise to a colonial archipelago of faith in which local cosmologies merged insights from Mesoamerican and European beliefs. In the end, idolatry eradication inspired distinct reactions: while Nahua responses focused on epistemological dissent against Christianity, Zapotec strategies privileged confrontations in defense of native cosmologies.

Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. Latinx Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Edited by Ricardo F. Vivancos-Pèrez and Norma Cantú. Rooted in Gloria Anzaldúa's experiences growing up near the U.S./Mexico border, BORDERLANDS/LA FRONTERA remaps our understanding of borders as psychic, social, and cultural terrains that we inhabit and that inhabit us all. Drawing heavily on archival research and a comprehensive literature review while contextualizing the book within her theories and writings before and after its 1987 publication, this critical edition elucidates Anzaldúa's complex composition process and its centrality in the development of her philosophy. It opens with two introductory studies; offers a corrected text, explanatory footnotes, translations, and four archival appendices; and closes with an updated bibliography of Anzaldúa's works, an extensive scholarly bibliography on Borderlands, a brief biography, and a short discussion of the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Papers. "Ricardo F. Vivancos-Pèrez's meticulous archival work and Norma Elia Cantú's life experience and expertise converge to offer a stunning resource for Anzaldúa scholars; for writers, artists, and activists inspired by her work; and for everyone. Hereafter, no study of Borderlands will be complete without this beautiful, essential reference."--Paola Bacchetta

Biografies invisibles: Marginats i marginals és un volum que conté una sèrie d’estudis de casos concrets de personatges històrics desconeguts en gran mesura i que, pel fet d’haver tingut unes vides al marge de la llei en moltes ocasions, no són actualment coneguts. També, sobre personatges literaris que encarnen aquelles opcions no majoritàries i, encara, reflexions més genèriques sobre aquells grups o sobre els textos que ens han transmés aquelles realitats. Biografies invisibles: Marginats i marginals conté quasi una vintena de treballs de reconeguts especialistes de diferents universitats europees, que han analitzat casos de dones marginades, homosexuals, i d’altres personatges marginals des de l’òptica actual. Es tracta de retornar-los la veu que un dia, la societat on van viure, els va negar. Invisible Biographies: Marginates and marginals is a volume that contains a series of specific case studies of largely unknown figures from the past who, because of their lives on the fringes of the law on many occasions, were silenced. Also, on literary characters who embody those non-majority options and, in addition, more generic reflections on those groups or on the texts that have transmitted to us those polyhedral realities. Invisible Biographies: Marginates and marginals contains almost twenty works by renowned specialists from different European universities, who have analysed the cases of marginalized women, Jews, homosexuals, and other persecuted characters from a contemporary perspective. The aim is to give them back the voice that the society in which they lived once denied them.