Religion in New Spain

Susan Schroeder , Editor
Stafford Poole C.M., Editor

Religion in New Spain presents an overview of the history of colonial religious culture and encompasses aspects of religion in the many regions of New Spain. In reading these essays, it is clear the Spanish conquest was not the end-all of indigenous culture, that the Virgin of Guadalupe was a myth-in-the-making by locals as well as foreigners, that nuns and priests had real lives, and that the institutional colonial church, even post-Trent, was seldom if ever above or beyond political or economic influence.

Susan Schroeder and Stafford Poole have divided the presentations into seven parts that represent general categories spanning the colonial era: "Encounters, Accommodation, and Outright Idolatry"; "Native Sexuality and Christian Morality"; "Believing in Miracles: Taking the Veil and New Realities"; "Guardian of the Christian Society: The Holy Office of the Inquisition--Racism, Judaizing, and Gambling"; "Music and Martyrdom on the Northern Frontier"; and "Tangential Christianity on Other Frontiers: Business and Politics as Usual."

Sacred space can be anywhere and might not be bound by walls and ceilings. As the authors of these essays show, religion is often an attempt to reconcile the mysterious and unmanageable forces of nature, such as storms, droughts, floods, infestations of pests, epidemic diseases, and sicknesses; it is an attempt to control the uncontrollable.

Contributors:
Maureen Ahern--professor of Spanish, Ohio State University, Columbus
John Chuchiak IV--assistant professor of colonial Latin American history, Missouri State University
Monica D�az--assistant professor of colonial Lain American literature, University of Texas--Pan American
Martha Few--associate professor of Latin American history, University of Arizona
Stanley M. Hordes--adjunct research professor at the Latin American and Iberian Institute, University of New Mexico
Asunci�n Lavrin--professor of history, Arizona State University
Sonya Lipsett-Rivera--professor of history, Carleton University, Ontario, Canada
Kristin Dutcher Mann--assistant professor of history, University of Arkansas, Little Rock
Mar�a Elena Mart�nez--assistant professor of Latin American history, University of Southern California
Jeanette Favrot Peterson--associate professor of history of art and architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara
Michael Polushin--assistant professor of history, University of Southern Mississippi
James Riley--associate professor of history, Catholic University of America
Lisa Sousa--assistant professor of Latin American history, Occidental College, Los Angeles
David Tav�rez--assistant professor of anthropology, Vassar College
Kevin Terraciano--director of Latin American studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Javier Villa-Flores--assistant professor, University of Illinois, Chicago

"...a fascinating book."--Catholic Southwest

"...a significant contribution to the history of the Church in colonial Mexico."--Catholic Historical Review

"Religion in New Spain succeeds brilliantly in...highlight[ing] the rich diversity of religious experience in colonial Mexico."--A Contracorriente

"This is a carefully edited and attractive volume....Anyone interested in the Hispanic world, Iberia, and Latin America, should profit greatly from it."--Sixteenth Century Journal

"This is a welcome addition to any collection focusing on colonial Latin America or religious culture."--Choice Magazine

"[An] excellent volume....Authors, editors, and the press are to be commended for this fine work."--Hispanic American Historical Review

Susan Schroeder is France Vinton Scholes Professor of Colonial Latin American History at Tulane University and the author of numerous works relating to Colonial Mesoamerican society and politics, religion, resistance, and women.

Stafford Poole, C.M., is a Roman Catholic Priest of the Congregation of the Mission of Saint Vincent de Paul, Los Angeles, and is a full-time research historian.

7 x 10 368 pages 21 halftones, 2 maps