In a study published in the mid-twentieth century, French historian Robert Ricard postulated that the evangelization and conversion of the native populations of Mexico had been rapid and relatively easy. However, different forms of evidence show that the so-called “spiritual conquest” was anything but easy or rapid, and, in fact, natives continued to practice their traditional beliefs alongside Catholicism. Within several decades of initiating the so-called “spiritual conquest,” the campaign to evangelize and convert the native populations, the missionaries faced growing evidence of idolatry or the persistence of traditional religious practices and apostasy, straying from Church teachings. The evidence includes written documents such as inquisition investigations that resulted, for example, in the execution of don Carlos, the native ruler of Tezcoco, on December 1, 1539, or that uncovered evidence of systematic organized resistance to Dominican missionaries in the Sierra Mixteca of Oaxaca. Other forms of evidence include pre-Hispanic religious iconography incorporated into what ostensibly were Christian murals, and pre-Hispanic stones embedded in the churches and convents the missionaries had built. One example of this was the stone with the face of Tláloc at the rear of the Franciscan church Santiago Tlatelolco in Distrito Federal. During the course of some three centuries, missionaries from different Catholic religious orders attempted to convert the native populations of colonial Mexico, with mixed results. Native groups throughout colonial Mexico resisted the imposition of the new religion in overt and covert forms, and incorporated Catholicism into their worldview on their own terms. Native cultural and religious traditions were more flexible than the Iberian Catholic norms introduced by the missionaries. The so-called “spiritual conquest,” a term coined by Ricard, evolved as a cultural war set against the backdrop of the imposition of a foreign colonial regime. The 11 essays in this volume examine the efforts to evangelize the native populations of Mexico, the approaches taken by the missionaries, and native responses. The contributions investigate the interplay between natives and missionaries in central Mexico, and on the southern and northern frontiers of New Spain, and among sedentary and non-sedentary natives. In the end, many natives found little in the new faith to attract them, and resisted the imposition of new religious norms and way of life.

Crónicas de América Latina: narrativa de no-ficción es la primera edición de una novedosa antología de crónicas diseñada para la enseñanza de español avanzado. Los textos, fascinantes y accesibles, permiten que los estudiantes se adentren en la compleja realidad contemporánea, tanto política como social y cultural, de América Latina, mientras refuerzan la lectura, la redacción y la conversación. Los ejercicios, todos ellos diseñados a partir de los propios textos, pretenden repasar problemas gramaticales y léxicos tradicionales, con especial énfasis en aquellos que atañen a las variedades dialectales del español americano: por ejemplo, el uso del pronombre ‘vos’. Este libro es un excelente material de lectura que puede usarse en clases de español como segunda lengua o en clases de español para hablantes de herencia, tanto en clases de lengua (gramática o conversación) como de contenido (cultura). Dividido en nueve capítulos, el material abarca temas cruciales tales como política, identidad, raza, género, inmigración, violencia, exilio, medio ambiente, gastronomía, fútbol y música. Cada texto puede leerse de forma independiente, lo que permite que los profesores seleccionen las lecturas según las particularidades de cada curso. Pensado en un principio para estudiantes de español, esta antología es sobre todo una lectura indispensable para cualquier persona interesada en la zona que concentra el mayor número de hispanohablantes en el mundo.

En aquest llibre s'ha defugit la temptació de convertir la història contemporània d'Amèrica en un mosaic inconnex de petites històries nacionals de cada país, i s'han abordat, per contra, i de forma innovadora, els grans problemes històrics continentals des de finals del segle XVIII fins a l'actualitat més estricta.

According to some chronicles of the Spanish Conquest, the violent arrival of the Conquerors to the Andes in the sixteenth century led to sex-dissident people who lived outside the dominant European cisheteropatriarchal model being burned at the stake. This act burned more than the flesh; it also charred practices, ways of life, and textualities, leaving an emptiness and a trauma that would mark the future literatures of the Andean region. This book cannot repair those pre-sodomite texts and bodies. It seeks instead to reconsider the value of the ash, a metaphor that allows for a critical and contradictory reading of sexual dissidences in the Andean region in the twentieth century, beyond both multiculturalism and the wake of a globalized LGBTI movement. Through a comparative analysis, and drawing on theoretical perspectives such as anticoloniality, feminisms, and cuir (rather than queer) theories, the book aims to understand the value of a series of complex texts in which dissident subjectivities, practices, and desires help to broaden the understanding of the Andean. Winner of the prestigious Casa de las Américas prize, the book was praised by the jury for the paradoxical and provocative way that it struggles against the abyss of past destruction and reflects on the contribution of the Global South to the often uniformist thinking around the body and its intersections.