Katy Kole de Peralta | Arizona State University (original) (raw)
Books by Katy Kole de Peralta
Renaissance Quarterly , 2023
New World. But the suffering body of the African slave, the beaten Caribbean warrior in battle, o... more New World. But the suffering body of the African slave, the beaten Caribbean warrior in battle, or the afflicted and famished indentured servant also evoke the Christian image of a community held together by the common band of misery, emphatically expressed by the pathos in Du Tertre's epic (174). The compassionate reader of the Histoire, in Kullberg's final argument, is thus drawn into this narrative of a "family drama" in which each of its members are part of one common colonial body (185). Kullberg's reading of Du Tertre is fascinating and eye-opening even to those who have read the Histoire générale des Antilles before. Her reinterpretation of the exotic imaginary as a rhetorical tool to justify the colonial process that leads to a cultural relativism reminiscent of romantic estheticism and postcolonial theory is very compelling. This highly recommendable book encourages the reader to reevaluate not only Du Tertre as an important contributor to colonial discourse in the seventeenth century, but also exoticism as a concept beyond its binary function within an ignorant ethnocentrism.
Articles by Katy Kole de Peralta
In May 2020, Arizona State University’s history department offered its first remote, digital inte... more In May 2020, Arizona State University’s history department offered its first remote, digital internship to graduate students. Students completed a 180-hour internship between May and August 2020. The internship involved weekly meetings, curation, collecting, journaling, and marketing. Over the summer, the interns worked to identify a silence in the archive and address it by creating a collection plan targeting the perceived silence. The interns drew on their own networks to build the collection, created a collection plan, conducted oral history interviews, wrote a blog post, and completed a final portfolio.
Environmental History Now Blog, 2019
Tthis is an introductory post to the new Noxious Natures series here on Environmental History Now... more Tthis is an introductory post to the new Noxious Natures series here on Environmental History Now. Under guidance of Dr. Katy Kole de Peralta, three environmental history students at Idaho State University will be sharing perspectives on environmental racism from around the world.
The Recipes Project Blog , 2019
The last thing Jesus ate was guinea pig. In his 1753 version of "The Last Supper," Marcos Zapata ... more The last thing Jesus ate was guinea pig. In his 1753 version of "The Last Supper," Marcos Zapata painted the Andean cuy (guinea pig) as the main entrée for Jesus and his disciples. The bald, splayed carcass greets visitors and parishioners inside Cuzco's main cathedral. But the fusion of religion and Andean cuisine marks more than an important meal: this tiny rodent has a long gastronomic history in Peru.
Hispanic American Historical Review , 2019
Noxious airs from trash discards, irrigation canals, marketplaces, hospitals, and plazas vitiated... more Noxious airs from trash discards, irrigation canals, marketplaces, hospitals, and plazas vitiated colonial Lima’s environment. Using olfactory history, this article examines how residents reacted to their pungent environs. Early modern Iberians believed that foul smells were harmful. Fully understanding this relationship, municipal leaders subjugated the San La ́zaro district by relocating its indigenous population and moving noxious trades and institutions to the area. I argue that the concentration of miasmas in San La ́zaro represents an environmental conquest. San La ́zaro’s ethnically and socially diverse population lived with unhealthy airs that threatened their health. By contrast, central Lima enjoyed fresher airs in locations primarily occupied by Spanish vecinos (male, landowning citizens, who were allowed to participate in local politics) in and around the Plaza de Armas, the cathedral, the viceroy’s palace, and the municipal hall. The protection of central Lima’s airs reveals that environmental management corresponded to social status and political power.
Guest Blog Post for Nursing Clio, 2018
How did women living in colonial Lima experience syphilis? This guest blog post for Nursing Clio ... more How did women living in colonial Lima experience syphilis? This guest blog post for Nursing Clio examines gendered disease experiences and health networks. it was one of Nursing Clio's most widely read blog posts for 2018.
The digital communication platform Slack gives students more ways to interact with instructors an... more The digital communication platform Slack gives students more ways to interact with instructors and one another and can breathe life into the online classroom, Kathleen Kole de Peralta and Sarah Robey write.
This chapter examines natural resource management during the settlement and construction of Spani... more This chapter examines natural resource management during the settlement and construction of Spanish Peru's capital city from 1535-1625. Soon after its foundation, Lima became South America's center of communication, commerce, and culture in the Americas. I base my investigation on a careful examination of archival data such as the early records of the city's Spanish government, land titles, notarial documents, and administrative reports. Three frameworks comprise the most recent trends in environmental history studies: transnational, cultural, and sensory. I build on these models by reconstructing a local environmental study of Lima, Peru during its foundation and edification. This case study helps us rethink the history of the Spanish conquest and the role the local environment played in shaping a colonial town. Construction demands placed incredible stress on Lima's coastal desert environment, and in
Journal of Water History, 2016
In 1535, Peru's governor, Francisco Pizarro, ordered the relocation of the Spanish settlement at ... more In 1535, Peru's governor, Francisco Pizarro, ordered the relocation of the Spanish settlement at Jauja, located in the central highlands, to Lima, located in the Rímac River Valley. Pizarro chose Lima's location in part based on its coastal location and the presence of two irregularly flowing rivers: the Rímac and the Chillón. Both rivers brought fresh water from the Andes Mountains and ran a winding course all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Indigenous people living in the valley channeled its water to irrigate hundreds of miles of land; creating a hydraulic network that supported agriculture, fruit trees, alder, and willow in an otherwise coastal desert. Despite royal mandates and Iberian precedents to leave irrigation systems acquired via conquest unchanged, Lima's municipal government disrupted the indigenous water network from the moment of foundation. Town councilmen justified these actions by linking the urban water supply to human health. This connection was based on three interrelated policies: (1) the rights and responsibilities of irrigators; (2) sanitation; and (3) dividing the city physically to minimize effects of disease and pollution. All of these policies influenced human relationships with water in the city, and provided a means for the town council to extend its jurisdiction over urban and rural spaces and their inhabitants.
Book Reviews by Katy Kole de Peralta
Renaissance Quarterly , 2023
Book review of Elizabeth Penry's The People Are King: The Making of an Indigenous Andean Politics
A review of Vaugn Scribner's book Merpeople: A Human History
Early American Literature, 2023
Literature Review of Yarí Pérez Marín's Marvels of Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in... more Literature Review of Yarí Pérez Marín's Marvels of Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in Early Colonial Spanish America, Sophie Brockman's The Science of Useful Nature in Central America: Landscapes, Networks, and Practical Enlightenment, 1784-1838, and Mauro José Caraccioli's Writing the New World: THe Politics of Natural History in the Spanish Empire
Book review of Samuel Amago's Basura.
The Latin Americanist, 2019
This opulent collection of primary and secondary sources transports readers on a journey across L... more This opulent collection of primary and secondary sources transports readers on a journey across Lima, Peru from the pre-Hispanic period through to the present day. Vivid voices from residents, migrants, travelers, and observers want to tell us many things. They whisper, shout, laugh, lament, and marvel at the city and its milieu. Each document illuminates a precise quotidian experience. As one moves through these sources, they build on one another, leaving readers with more tiers, color, and flavor than Lima's famous anise and honey-laden cake Turrón de Doña Pepa.
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2017
Review of fOrlando Bentancor's The Matter of Empire: Metaphysics and Mining in Colonial Peru
Canadian Journal of History, 2018
Talks by Katy Kole de Peralta
Renaissance Quarterly , 2023
New World. But the suffering body of the African slave, the beaten Caribbean warrior in battle, o... more New World. But the suffering body of the African slave, the beaten Caribbean warrior in battle, or the afflicted and famished indentured servant also evoke the Christian image of a community held together by the common band of misery, emphatically expressed by the pathos in Du Tertre's epic (174). The compassionate reader of the Histoire, in Kullberg's final argument, is thus drawn into this narrative of a "family drama" in which each of its members are part of one common colonial body (185). Kullberg's reading of Du Tertre is fascinating and eye-opening even to those who have read the Histoire générale des Antilles before. Her reinterpretation of the exotic imaginary as a rhetorical tool to justify the colonial process that leads to a cultural relativism reminiscent of romantic estheticism and postcolonial theory is very compelling. This highly recommendable book encourages the reader to reevaluate not only Du Tertre as an important contributor to colonial discourse in the seventeenth century, but also exoticism as a concept beyond its binary function within an ignorant ethnocentrism.
In May 2020, Arizona State University’s history department offered its first remote, digital inte... more In May 2020, Arizona State University’s history department offered its first remote, digital internship to graduate students. Students completed a 180-hour internship between May and August 2020. The internship involved weekly meetings, curation, collecting, journaling, and marketing. Over the summer, the interns worked to identify a silence in the archive and address it by creating a collection plan targeting the perceived silence. The interns drew on their own networks to build the collection, created a collection plan, conducted oral history interviews, wrote a blog post, and completed a final portfolio.
Environmental History Now Blog, 2019
Tthis is an introductory post to the new Noxious Natures series here on Environmental History Now... more Tthis is an introductory post to the new Noxious Natures series here on Environmental History Now. Under guidance of Dr. Katy Kole de Peralta, three environmental history students at Idaho State University will be sharing perspectives on environmental racism from around the world.
The Recipes Project Blog , 2019
The last thing Jesus ate was guinea pig. In his 1753 version of "The Last Supper," Marcos Zapata ... more The last thing Jesus ate was guinea pig. In his 1753 version of "The Last Supper," Marcos Zapata painted the Andean cuy (guinea pig) as the main entrée for Jesus and his disciples. The bald, splayed carcass greets visitors and parishioners inside Cuzco's main cathedral. But the fusion of religion and Andean cuisine marks more than an important meal: this tiny rodent has a long gastronomic history in Peru.
Hispanic American Historical Review , 2019
Noxious airs from trash discards, irrigation canals, marketplaces, hospitals, and plazas vitiated... more Noxious airs from trash discards, irrigation canals, marketplaces, hospitals, and plazas vitiated colonial Lima’s environment. Using olfactory history, this article examines how residents reacted to their pungent environs. Early modern Iberians believed that foul smells were harmful. Fully understanding this relationship, municipal leaders subjugated the San La ́zaro district by relocating its indigenous population and moving noxious trades and institutions to the area. I argue that the concentration of miasmas in San La ́zaro represents an environmental conquest. San La ́zaro’s ethnically and socially diverse population lived with unhealthy airs that threatened their health. By contrast, central Lima enjoyed fresher airs in locations primarily occupied by Spanish vecinos (male, landowning citizens, who were allowed to participate in local politics) in and around the Plaza de Armas, the cathedral, the viceroy’s palace, and the municipal hall. The protection of central Lima’s airs reveals that environmental management corresponded to social status and political power.
Guest Blog Post for Nursing Clio, 2018
How did women living in colonial Lima experience syphilis? This guest blog post for Nursing Clio ... more How did women living in colonial Lima experience syphilis? This guest blog post for Nursing Clio examines gendered disease experiences and health networks. it was one of Nursing Clio's most widely read blog posts for 2018.
The digital communication platform Slack gives students more ways to interact with instructors an... more The digital communication platform Slack gives students more ways to interact with instructors and one another and can breathe life into the online classroom, Kathleen Kole de Peralta and Sarah Robey write.
This chapter examines natural resource management during the settlement and construction of Spani... more This chapter examines natural resource management during the settlement and construction of Spanish Peru's capital city from 1535-1625. Soon after its foundation, Lima became South America's center of communication, commerce, and culture in the Americas. I base my investigation on a careful examination of archival data such as the early records of the city's Spanish government, land titles, notarial documents, and administrative reports. Three frameworks comprise the most recent trends in environmental history studies: transnational, cultural, and sensory. I build on these models by reconstructing a local environmental study of Lima, Peru during its foundation and edification. This case study helps us rethink the history of the Spanish conquest and the role the local environment played in shaping a colonial town. Construction demands placed incredible stress on Lima's coastal desert environment, and in
Journal of Water History, 2016
In 1535, Peru's governor, Francisco Pizarro, ordered the relocation of the Spanish settlement at ... more In 1535, Peru's governor, Francisco Pizarro, ordered the relocation of the Spanish settlement at Jauja, located in the central highlands, to Lima, located in the Rímac River Valley. Pizarro chose Lima's location in part based on its coastal location and the presence of two irregularly flowing rivers: the Rímac and the Chillón. Both rivers brought fresh water from the Andes Mountains and ran a winding course all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Indigenous people living in the valley channeled its water to irrigate hundreds of miles of land; creating a hydraulic network that supported agriculture, fruit trees, alder, and willow in an otherwise coastal desert. Despite royal mandates and Iberian precedents to leave irrigation systems acquired via conquest unchanged, Lima's municipal government disrupted the indigenous water network from the moment of foundation. Town councilmen justified these actions by linking the urban water supply to human health. This connection was based on three interrelated policies: (1) the rights and responsibilities of irrigators; (2) sanitation; and (3) dividing the city physically to minimize effects of disease and pollution. All of these policies influenced human relationships with water in the city, and provided a means for the town council to extend its jurisdiction over urban and rural spaces and their inhabitants.
Renaissance Quarterly , 2023
Book review of Elizabeth Penry's The People Are King: The Making of an Indigenous Andean Politics
A review of Vaugn Scribner's book Merpeople: A Human History
Early American Literature, 2023
Literature Review of Yarí Pérez Marín's Marvels of Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in... more Literature Review of Yarí Pérez Marín's Marvels of Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in Early Colonial Spanish America, Sophie Brockman's The Science of Useful Nature in Central America: Landscapes, Networks, and Practical Enlightenment, 1784-1838, and Mauro José Caraccioli's Writing the New World: THe Politics of Natural History in the Spanish Empire
Book review of Samuel Amago's Basura.
The Latin Americanist, 2019
This opulent collection of primary and secondary sources transports readers on a journey across L... more This opulent collection of primary and secondary sources transports readers on a journey across Lima, Peru from the pre-Hispanic period through to the present day. Vivid voices from residents, migrants, travelers, and observers want to tell us many things. They whisper, shout, laugh, lament, and marvel at the city and its milieu. Each document illuminates a precise quotidian experience. As one moves through these sources, they build on one another, leaving readers with more tiers, color, and flavor than Lima's famous anise and honey-laden cake Turrón de Doña Pepa.
Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 2017
Review of fOrlando Bentancor's The Matter of Empire: Metaphysics and Mining in Colonial Peru
Canadian Journal of History, 2018
Scholarly treatments of early colonial Peru often characterize the period as a three-way str... more Scholarly treatments of early colonial Peru often characterize the period as a three-way struggle among Spanish, Indian, and African people. This emphasis, however, overlooks another agent: the environment. This paper is part of a larger project that uses environmental history to understand Lima’s urbanization from 1535-1640. I examine the interaction between humans and the landscape over time, with an emphasis on the edification of a colonial settlement. The construction of new buildings, bridges, roads, public fountains, and ships consumed a variety of local and imported natural resources including clay, sand, limestone, timber, stone, and reeds.
A careful examination of municipal records demonstrates how ecological awareness directly influenced urban architecture, organization, consumption, and municipal law. For example, from the moment of Lima’s foundation the rush to build new homes and structures quickly deforested the surrounding valley. Concerns over degradation were articulated in legal codes that aimed to protect and preserve Lima’s arbor supply. In order to understand cities in early-modern Latin America we must unearth the pragmatic concerns of survival at the crossroads of empire. This paper and the broader project shed light on how Limeños linked an environmental consciousness to ideas of civic responsibility, social welfare, and sustainable growth. Lima’s natural surroundings proved central to metropolitan expansion.""
During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Lima urbanized at an incredible pace. I... more During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries Lima urbanized at an incredible pace. In just a few decades, it transformed from a small settlement into one of the largest cities in South America. The population rose significantly after 1585 and by the time of the 1614 census it surpassed 25,000. However, the rate of Lima’s growth generated problems common to many large cities in Europe and the Spanish Americas– the concentration of waste, sewage, and illness. Under those conditions, the struggle to maintain a healthy city came to the forefront of public consciousness. Five aspects characterize the development of Lima’s public health system: the practical problems of the environment and unregulated growth, contemporary theories of illness, waste management, hospitals, and disease control. An examination of early colonial Lima reveals how municipal officials linked health initiatives to larger discourses on the public good. Central to this discussion was the idea that residents needed protection from a potentially hazardous, threatening, and unhealthy environment. In particular, town councilmen, viceroys and local physicians worried that miasmas, or putrid smells, undermined the city’s wellbeing. Therefore, providing residents with clean air became a significant driving force behind Lima’s public health program.
Like the rise and fall of the ocean tide, dual currents of opportunity and obstacle marked Lima’... more Like the rise and fall of the ocean tide, dual currents of opportunity and obstacle marked Lima’s relationship to the southern sea. Its waves brought to shore the bounties of trade and communication while at the same time they disclosed the uncertainty of encroaching enemy fleets. The physical landscape of Peru’s western coast influenced how the Spanish administered and exploited the Pacific environment. The oversight of the Southern Sea could not be separated as easily as the domains of coastal towns. Nor were the broader authorities of the high courts, or audiencias, easily transferred from land to ocean. Instead, Spain’s king entrusted Lima’s viceroy with an oceanic jurisdiction, an aquatic expanse that included Callao, the coast of Peru and Chile, and the Strait of Magellan.
When spring arrived in 1578, melting snow deluged the Lima river valley. Near the San Lázaro... more When spring arrived in 1578, melting snow deluged the Lima river valley. Near the San Lázaro neighborhood, the Rímac River overwhelmed its banks. Rushing waters swept away anything in its path. Startled onlookers watched the river carry off doors, chairs, tables, and entire homes. When the inundation subsided, Limeños learned that almost the entire San Lázaro neighborhood had been destroyed. Moreover, the flood washed away sections of shoreline, reducing the physical space in which residents could rebuild. In response, the town council adopted new preventative measures by building stone reinforcements and mandating annual inspections of those structures.
Despite the challenges of building a colonial settlement in the middle of a coastal desert, Lima emerged as Peru's center of commerce, culture, and administration. A careful examination Lima’s municipal records from 1535-1610 demonstrates that environmental concerns such as geography, urban organization, natural resources, and pollution directly influenced the ordinances, laws, and decrees issued by the town council. Thus, an emerging legal network constantly negotiated the relationship between the Spanish and Lima valley. This presentation will incorporate archival research conducted at the Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, the National Library of Peru, and the Historic Municipal Archive of Lima. Some of the key texts examined are Lima’s municipal records: such as the Libros del cabildos de Lima and the Libros de Cédulas y Provisiones Reales.
What humans eat is the result of historical, environmental, and cultural processes. This course e... more What humans eat is the result of historical, environmental, and cultural processes. This course examines how humans have produced, cooked, and consumed foods, providing a global overview from scavenger-hunter societies in Africa to the debut of fashion-forward forks in seventeenth century France.
A public history blog post for History@Work and the National Council on Public History. The post ... more A public history blog post for History@Work and the National Council on Public History. The post describes how the COVID-19 Archive recognizes and addresses silences within a rapid-response archive.