Emily Floyd | University College London (original) (raw)
Journal Articles by Emily Floyd
Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2021
Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2021
This is a translation of an article originally published as Tras los pasos de un artista en blanc... more This is a translation of an article originally published as Tras los pasos de un artista en blanco y negro: identidad y agencia en los grabadores limeños del siglo XVIII. The Spanish version, also uploaded to academia.edu, is the version of record.
Material Religion, 2021
This article centers on the devotional volume Corona de la divinissima María, published in Lima i... more This article centers on the devotional volume Corona de la divinissima María, published in Lima in 1644. This volume primarily takes the form of an extended exegesis of the words spoken by the Virgin Mary as recorded in the Bible, while also exploring the power of the Virgin's name and narrating the author's search for her true lived physical appearance. The book includes 37 engraved illustrations. One of these engravings reproduces a painting the author commissioned of the Virgin's true appearance; the rest diagram or emblematically illustrate powerful words. Indeed, the entire book, called a Corona, or crown, itself shapes an extended metaphor in which the words of prayers directed at the Virgin materialize as spiritual crowns, represented three times in the engraved illustrations. This article argues that, within the 1644 Corona, words have material presence and bear power in multiple ways: as diagrams, as typographic objects, and as spiritual forms.
Metalworking occupies a unique place within Inca artistic production. A surprising percentage of ... more Metalworking occupies a unique place within Inca artistic production. A surprising percentage of the surviving works in this high-value medium might be considered anthropomorphic or zoomorphic, making them singular in the Inca artistic corpus, famed for its avoidance of flora and fauna. Descriptions by Spanish chroniclers suggest that many more anthropomorphic and even perhaps “naturalistic” works once existed. This essay thereby grapples with the following two questions: why did the Inca approach metal so differently from other sculptural media, most notably stone? And how do we square descriptions of Inca metalwork’s “naturalism” in European chronicles with what we might describe, at best, as anthro- or zoomorphic forms in the surviving Inca corpus? I draw on evidence of precious metal sculptures found in archaeological contexts, recent research on the Berlin museum “Inca” corncob, and an analysis of the chroniclers’ writings to address the prevalence of anthropomorphism in Inca gold and silver production and argue that, for the Inca, the materials with which they worked shaped the representational modes they employed. Rather than inert substances awaiting the intervention of the artisan, materials could be numinous agential entities in their own right. Stone, the Inca material par excellence, possessed inherent agency, in that the Inca perceived stones as living entities; these were often left entirely unhewn. In contrast, gold, with its malleability and potential for fluidity, was not considered a living being in its own right, but instead metallic effluvia, the tears of the powerful sun deity. As tears, gold was charged with the power of this important deity but was not in and of itself living. This distinction between gold as tears of the sun, and stone, with its own intrinsic vitality, explains the contrasting ways in which the Inca worked the two materials: metals were sacred but not living and, due to their fluidity, had no “natural” state or shape. Thus, unlike stone, they could and perhaps should be shaped into anthropomorphic forms without betraying their own essential nature. To grasp this essential difference between metal and stone, it is necessary first to reframe “naturalism” against Spanish chroniclers’ descriptions and to excavate the ways in which Spanish sources have largely and perhaps unavoidably shaped our perception of Inca metalwork.
(To read the complete article, follow this url: http://mavcor.yale.edu/conversations/medium-studies/tears-sun-naturalistic-and-anthropomorphic-inca-metalwork)
The Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University (MAVCOR) ... more The Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University (MAVCOR) does not simply, or even most fundamentally, shape a physical center at Yale University. Although MAVCOR organizes events at Yale and coordinates project cycles involving Yale affiliates as well as scholars from other universities in the United States and around the world, much of MAVCOR’s activity is conducted online. MAVCOR publishes a born-digital, open-access double-blind peer-reviewed journal, MAVCOR Journal. It also features a born-digital exhibition space, the Material Objects Archive. In at least two ways, MAVCOR is deliberately interstitial, invested in the connective spaces between both disciplines and technologies. First, the Center emerged from a desire to promote interdisciplinary conversation among scholars of religion, art history, anthropology, and others engaged with our subjects of inquiry. We have aimed to accomplish this goal by shaping a forum for conversation and an archive for mutual use. Second, MAVCOR engages the need to form a space for peer-reviewed content online in a manner that emphasizes the mutually beneficial relationship of print and digital modes of inquiry. In this work, MAVCOR’s overarching commitment is to promote innovative, substantively researched, thoughtfully constructed scholarship, with robust interdisciplinarity as a fundamental element of form and content.
Book Chapters by Emily Floyd
Collective Creativity and Artistic Agency in Colonial Latin America, 2023
Digital Humanities and Research Methods in Religious Studies: An Introduction, Vol 2, 2021
As the studyo fm aterial and visual religion has taken shape over roughlyt he past four decades,t... more As the studyo fm aterial and visual religion has taken shape over roughlyt he past four decades,the field has faced aunique set of challenges, both ideological and technical. Secularization theory loomslarge from an ideological perspective. Scholars in multiple disciplines have rehearsed, manyt imes over,the challenge of the secularization paradigmfor studies of religion, and for studies of religious materialities in particular. In brief, secularization theory maintainedthat if religion survivedinto modernity,itwould be an immaterial and interior sort,aset of beliefs rather thanbehaviors or practices with their material, spatial, and sensory agencies, implements, and accouterments.This set of secularist assumptions constrained the studyofmaterial religion by situating it almostexclusively within the pre-modern, the "primitive," the "less advanced." Although secularization theory,i ni ts earlier reigning forms, has now been fullyd ebunked, its complex effects and aftermathsc ontinue to impedet he studyo fm aterial religion today. The technical challenges to material religion studies are readilya pparent. Chief among these is the necessity for accesst ol arge numbers of high quality images for research and teaching. Beyond the simple requirement for many highq uality images, scholars of material religion also need access to multiple forms and formats beyond the photograph. When thinking about performative practices,f or example, sound, motion, and three-dimensional capacities contribute to an appropriatelyc apacious archive. Earlier visual technologies came with specific kinds of restrictions. Slide libraries archiving images generallyc atered to discipline-specific audiences,a rt historians and anthropologists, among them, and the discipline shaped the nature of the slidecollection. Slide libraries specific to the discipline of art history, for example, largely consisted of works of fine art.F urthermore, slides were themselvesd iscretem aterial objects. If someonei nad epartment needed a slide for teaching, and as cholar from elsewherei nt he university had removed it for the day, an entire lecture required retooling. This made disciplines highly Note: The authorswishtothankC amille Angelo forh er careful and thoughtful manuscript editing.
A Companion to Early Modern Lima, 2019
Plata de los Andes, 2018
In Plata de los Andes, edited by Ricardo Kusunoki Rodríguez and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden. Lima: Mus... more In Plata de los Andes, edited by Ricardo Kusunoki Rodríguez and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden. Lima: Museo de Arte de Lima, 2018.
Catalog Entries by Emily Floyd
La colección Petrus y Verónica Fernandini: El arte de la pintura en los Andes
From Early Modern Faces: European Portraits 1480-1780
From Early Modern Faces: European Portraits 1480-1780
Blog Posts and Public Scholarship by Emily Floyd
Sometimes a document is much more than the text it contains. The roughly 40 late-colonial-era Per... more Sometimes a document is much more than the text it contains. The roughly 40 late-colonial-era Peruvian cartas de hermandad (confraternal letters) in the JCB’s collection were a source of surprise and delight to me when I discovered them as part of my research as a Library Associates Fellow in fall of 2015. As single-sheet imprints they were a deceptively simple grouping: a type of document that often doesn’t survive, but that historically would have been among the most abundant products of colonial Peruvian presses. They are what Peter Stallybrass has deemed “little jobs,” those quickly assembled and rapidly printed ephemeral invitations, childrens’ grammars, calendars, pamphlets, bulls, almanacs, and broadsides that were printers’ bread and butter. Objects of this nature are relatively rare today for diverse reasons: while many of them were made for specific occasions and then thrown away after the event had passed, others saw heavy use, as when children learning to read thumbed the pages of grammars to shreds.
(For complete essay, click here: http://blogs.brown.edu/jcbbooks/2016/05/16/material-connections-peruvian-cartas-de-hermandad-at-the-jcb/)
On February 9, 2009, the New York Times ran an article titled “For Catholics, a Door to Absolutio... more On February 9, 2009, the New York Times ran an article titled “For Catholics, a Door to Absolution Is Reopened,” describing the Catholic Church’s reintroduction of indulgences after ending the practice in the wake of Vatican II. Indulgences are best known to the general public for having attracted the ire of Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation. The logic of indulgences rests on the concept of Purgatory, an intermediary space in which souls are purged of their sins prior to being welcomed into Heaven. The souls of those who had committed unforgivable mortal sins in life went straight to Hell and damnation, but the majority of individuals who had sinned less drastically would spend some amount of time in temporary torment in Purgatory. Indulgences granted the recipient remission of that time. As the New York Times article described, many contemporary Catholics were confused by the purpose and function of indulgences. One woman asked, “What does it mean to get time off in Purgatory? What is five years in terms of eternity?”
Eighteenth-century Peruvian printed indulgences suggest that the opaque nature of the indulgence isn’t limited to the twenty-first century. . . . (For complete essay, click here: http://materialreligions.blogspot.pe/2016/02/the-power-of-image-in-peruvian.html)
Talks by Emily Floyd
Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2021
Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, 2021
This is a translation of an article originally published as Tras los pasos de un artista en blanc... more This is a translation of an article originally published as Tras los pasos de un artista en blanco y negro: identidad y agencia en los grabadores limeños del siglo XVIII. The Spanish version, also uploaded to academia.edu, is the version of record.
Material Religion, 2021
This article centers on the devotional volume Corona de la divinissima María, published in Lima i... more This article centers on the devotional volume Corona de la divinissima María, published in Lima in 1644. This volume primarily takes the form of an extended exegesis of the words spoken by the Virgin Mary as recorded in the Bible, while also exploring the power of the Virgin's name and narrating the author's search for her true lived physical appearance. The book includes 37 engraved illustrations. One of these engravings reproduces a painting the author commissioned of the Virgin's true appearance; the rest diagram or emblematically illustrate powerful words. Indeed, the entire book, called a Corona, or crown, itself shapes an extended metaphor in which the words of prayers directed at the Virgin materialize as spiritual crowns, represented three times in the engraved illustrations. This article argues that, within the 1644 Corona, words have material presence and bear power in multiple ways: as diagrams, as typographic objects, and as spiritual forms.
Metalworking occupies a unique place within Inca artistic production. A surprising percentage of ... more Metalworking occupies a unique place within Inca artistic production. A surprising percentage of the surviving works in this high-value medium might be considered anthropomorphic or zoomorphic, making them singular in the Inca artistic corpus, famed for its avoidance of flora and fauna. Descriptions by Spanish chroniclers suggest that many more anthropomorphic and even perhaps “naturalistic” works once existed. This essay thereby grapples with the following two questions: why did the Inca approach metal so differently from other sculptural media, most notably stone? And how do we square descriptions of Inca metalwork’s “naturalism” in European chronicles with what we might describe, at best, as anthro- or zoomorphic forms in the surviving Inca corpus? I draw on evidence of precious metal sculptures found in archaeological contexts, recent research on the Berlin museum “Inca” corncob, and an analysis of the chroniclers’ writings to address the prevalence of anthropomorphism in Inca gold and silver production and argue that, for the Inca, the materials with which they worked shaped the representational modes they employed. Rather than inert substances awaiting the intervention of the artisan, materials could be numinous agential entities in their own right. Stone, the Inca material par excellence, possessed inherent agency, in that the Inca perceived stones as living entities; these were often left entirely unhewn. In contrast, gold, with its malleability and potential for fluidity, was not considered a living being in its own right, but instead metallic effluvia, the tears of the powerful sun deity. As tears, gold was charged with the power of this important deity but was not in and of itself living. This distinction between gold as tears of the sun, and stone, with its own intrinsic vitality, explains the contrasting ways in which the Inca worked the two materials: metals were sacred but not living and, due to their fluidity, had no “natural” state or shape. Thus, unlike stone, they could and perhaps should be shaped into anthropomorphic forms without betraying their own essential nature. To grasp this essential difference between metal and stone, it is necessary first to reframe “naturalism” against Spanish chroniclers’ descriptions and to excavate the ways in which Spanish sources have largely and perhaps unavoidably shaped our perception of Inca metalwork.
(To read the complete article, follow this url: http://mavcor.yale.edu/conversations/medium-studies/tears-sun-naturalistic-and-anthropomorphic-inca-metalwork)
The Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University (MAVCOR) ... more The Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University (MAVCOR) does not simply, or even most fundamentally, shape a physical center at Yale University. Although MAVCOR organizes events at Yale and coordinates project cycles involving Yale affiliates as well as scholars from other universities in the United States and around the world, much of MAVCOR’s activity is conducted online. MAVCOR publishes a born-digital, open-access double-blind peer-reviewed journal, MAVCOR Journal. It also features a born-digital exhibition space, the Material Objects Archive. In at least two ways, MAVCOR is deliberately interstitial, invested in the connective spaces between both disciplines and technologies. First, the Center emerged from a desire to promote interdisciplinary conversation among scholars of religion, art history, anthropology, and others engaged with our subjects of inquiry. We have aimed to accomplish this goal by shaping a forum for conversation and an archive for mutual use. Second, MAVCOR engages the need to form a space for peer-reviewed content online in a manner that emphasizes the mutually beneficial relationship of print and digital modes of inquiry. In this work, MAVCOR’s overarching commitment is to promote innovative, substantively researched, thoughtfully constructed scholarship, with robust interdisciplinarity as a fundamental element of form and content.
Collective Creativity and Artistic Agency in Colonial Latin America, 2023
Digital Humanities and Research Methods in Religious Studies: An Introduction, Vol 2, 2021
As the studyo fm aterial and visual religion has taken shape over roughlyt he past four decades,t... more As the studyo fm aterial and visual religion has taken shape over roughlyt he past four decades,the field has faced aunique set of challenges, both ideological and technical. Secularization theory loomslarge from an ideological perspective. Scholars in multiple disciplines have rehearsed, manyt imes over,the challenge of the secularization paradigmfor studies of religion, and for studies of religious materialities in particular. In brief, secularization theory maintainedthat if religion survivedinto modernity,itwould be an immaterial and interior sort,aset of beliefs rather thanbehaviors or practices with their material, spatial, and sensory agencies, implements, and accouterments.This set of secularist assumptions constrained the studyofmaterial religion by situating it almostexclusively within the pre-modern, the "primitive," the "less advanced." Although secularization theory,i ni ts earlier reigning forms, has now been fullyd ebunked, its complex effects and aftermathsc ontinue to impedet he studyo fm aterial religion today. The technical challenges to material religion studies are readilya pparent. Chief among these is the necessity for accesst ol arge numbers of high quality images for research and teaching. Beyond the simple requirement for many highq uality images, scholars of material religion also need access to multiple forms and formats beyond the photograph. When thinking about performative practices,f or example, sound, motion, and three-dimensional capacities contribute to an appropriatelyc apacious archive. Earlier visual technologies came with specific kinds of restrictions. Slide libraries archiving images generallyc atered to discipline-specific audiences,a rt historians and anthropologists, among them, and the discipline shaped the nature of the slidecollection. Slide libraries specific to the discipline of art history, for example, largely consisted of works of fine art.F urthermore, slides were themselvesd iscretem aterial objects. If someonei nad epartment needed a slide for teaching, and as cholar from elsewherei nt he university had removed it for the day, an entire lecture required retooling. This made disciplines highly Note: The authorswishtothankC amille Angelo forh er careful and thoughtful manuscript editing.
A Companion to Early Modern Lima, 2019
Plata de los Andes, 2018
In Plata de los Andes, edited by Ricardo Kusunoki Rodríguez and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden. Lima: Mus... more In Plata de los Andes, edited by Ricardo Kusunoki Rodríguez and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden. Lima: Museo de Arte de Lima, 2018.
La colección Petrus y Verónica Fernandini: El arte de la pintura en los Andes
From Early Modern Faces: European Portraits 1480-1780
From Early Modern Faces: European Portraits 1480-1780
Sometimes a document is much more than the text it contains. The roughly 40 late-colonial-era Per... more Sometimes a document is much more than the text it contains. The roughly 40 late-colonial-era Peruvian cartas de hermandad (confraternal letters) in the JCB’s collection were a source of surprise and delight to me when I discovered them as part of my research as a Library Associates Fellow in fall of 2015. As single-sheet imprints they were a deceptively simple grouping: a type of document that often doesn’t survive, but that historically would have been among the most abundant products of colonial Peruvian presses. They are what Peter Stallybrass has deemed “little jobs,” those quickly assembled and rapidly printed ephemeral invitations, childrens’ grammars, calendars, pamphlets, bulls, almanacs, and broadsides that were printers’ bread and butter. Objects of this nature are relatively rare today for diverse reasons: while many of them were made for specific occasions and then thrown away after the event had passed, others saw heavy use, as when children learning to read thumbed the pages of grammars to shreds.
(For complete essay, click here: http://blogs.brown.edu/jcbbooks/2016/05/16/material-connections-peruvian-cartas-de-hermandad-at-the-jcb/)
On February 9, 2009, the New York Times ran an article titled “For Catholics, a Door to Absolutio... more On February 9, 2009, the New York Times ran an article titled “For Catholics, a Door to Absolution Is Reopened,” describing the Catholic Church’s reintroduction of indulgences after ending the practice in the wake of Vatican II. Indulgences are best known to the general public for having attracted the ire of Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther during the Protestant Reformation. The logic of indulgences rests on the concept of Purgatory, an intermediary space in which souls are purged of their sins prior to being welcomed into Heaven. The souls of those who had committed unforgivable mortal sins in life went straight to Hell and damnation, but the majority of individuals who had sinned less drastically would spend some amount of time in temporary torment in Purgatory. Indulgences granted the recipient remission of that time. As the New York Times article described, many contemporary Catholics were confused by the purpose and function of indulgences. One woman asked, “What does it mean to get time off in Purgatory? What is five years in terms of eternity?”
Eighteenth-century Peruvian printed indulgences suggest that the opaque nature of the indulgence isn’t limited to the twenty-first century. . . . (For complete essay, click here: http://materialreligions.blogspot.pe/2016/02/the-power-of-image-in-peruvian.html)
What can objects tell us about belief? Catholicism is often characterized as a religion of orthop... more What can objects tell us about belief? Catholicism is often characterized as a religion of orthopraxy over orthodoxy (emphasizing right practice over right belief), but even if actions rather than beliefs unify a community, people nonetheless understand their actions to function in certain ways, to be efficacious. Accessing the relationships people have to objects, both now and historically, can be challenging; evidence is often highly subjective or nonexistent. But looking at accounts attesting to what objects, in this case Catholic religious prints made in colonial Peru, were believed to do, where they went, and how they did it can offer a window into the difficult to navigate realm of “belief.” This presentation will look at two aspects of this understanding, centering around action (what prints do) and movement (where prints go) arguing that, in Spanish colonial South America, at least, one of the functions of prints was to create community and offer spiritual succor, tying together the diverse areas of the region in shared devotion to local saints and other forms of the divine.
VI Seminario de Arte y Cultura en la Corte. Redes artísticas, circulación y exposición de reliqui... more VI Seminario de Arte y Cultura en la Corte. Redes artísticas, circulación y exposición de reliquias en el Mundo Hispánico Dra. Emily C. Floyd University College London "Santos de papel y de hueso: Una aproximación hacia la lógica paralela de las reliquias y los grabados" En la geografía de la Sudamérica virreinal, las crónicas hagiográficas de santos y beatos locales relatan los milagros obrados por objetos de distintas naturalezas, como huesos o rosarios, elementos relacionados de alguna manera con el cuerpo o aspecto del personaje santificado. Diversas fuentes consultadas enfatizan el poder de dichos elementos, los cuales son denominados reliquias. El uso actual del término reliquia hace referencia a fragmentos corporales de la persona santificada, los cuales comprenden desde dedos hasta corazones, cabezas o cuerpos enteros. Sin embargo, en los documentos virreinales, no solo los pedazos del cuerpo tenían el poder de obrar milagros. Los trozos de tela del hábito del difunto, los rosarios tocados a su cadáver y sus imágenes, en particular los grabados que representan su "verdadero retrato", tenían la capacidad de transmitir el poder del santo. La relación entre el grabado y el fragmento corporal del santo y su mutua capacidad para comunicar el poder del difunto celestial a beneficio de sus devotos se extiende de esta manera no solo a su función, sino también a su naturaleza como objeto. Ambos implican la impresión de una matriz sobre un material que, como resultado, se entendía como un vestigio del santo. En el caso del grabado en cobre, las tallas en madera o las impresiones en papel, el poder espiritual del individuo traspasaba a las reliquias que funcionaban como vehículos de su poder. Esta ponencia analizará la función complementaria que existía entre reliquias y grabados en la Sudamérica virreinal teniendo como base diversos documentos coloniales y un estudio pormenorizado de los grabados de época.
In recent years, the consideration of visual and material sources has greatly enriched the study ... more In recent years, the consideration of visual and material sources has greatly enriched the study of a wide range of scientific practices in the early modern period. As scholars have moved away from characterizing " art " and " science " as discrete categories, they have increasingly turned to paintings, prints, and other forms of artistic production as a means to explore how early modern actors came to understand their experiences of the natural world. While the vast majority of these studies focus on the visual and material culture of Protestant Northern Europe, a small but growing number investigate similar trends in Spain and the Spanish Americas. Yet even as scholars have turned to instances where visual thinking formed a central component of scientific practices in this region, they have been more tentative to consider how religion, and particularly Catholicism, shaped such practices in this context.
En búsqueda del verdadero retrato: discursos del imagen, official e inoficial, en América del Sur... more En búsqueda del verdadero retrato: discursos del imagen, official e inoficial, en América del Sur virreinal," VII Simposio Internacional de Historia del arte, "Iconoclasia e iconodulia," Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia, September 6-8) Gran parte de las imágenes religiosas impresas en la Lima colonial proponen la pregunta de la relación entre copia y original, ya que pueden ser un original material, es decir una estatua o pintura devocional ubicada en un sitio especifico, o un original celestial que representa a un santo hombre o mujer. Estos grabados suelen tener leyendas que los identifican como "verdadera efigie" o "verdadero retrato" de la sagrada figura representada, o que afirman de otra manera su relación directa con el original. Sin embargo, los enlaces que establecen son inexactos pues a diferencia de sus homólogos pintados, que han sido interpretados como trampantojos a lo divino, los grabados limeños raras veces asemejan precisamente con sus prototipos. Esta ponencia intenta responder a dos preguntas en el contexto de la Sudamérica colonial: ¿qué hace que un verdadero retrato sea "verdadero"; y cómo se relacionan las copias sagradas a sus originales?, o, mejor dicho, ¿qué o quién actúa en la copia? Al fin y al cabo, la ausencia de un parecido exacto en los "verdaderos" retratos grabados no les previene evocar la presencia de la figura deseada. De hecho, la relación ambigua entre materiales diferentes y entre copia y original parece haber suplido una dimensión importante en su eficacia espiritual. Por lo tanto, los grabados limeños sugieren una conexión no solo a la efigie individual que reproducen, sino a una red de imágenes entretejidas que frecuentemente participan en identidades compartidas o solapadas, que comparten dominios de influencia, y modos de actuar en el mundo.
Indian painter to produce the engravings that realize his own original ideas. In its final form t... more Indian painter to produce the engravings that realize his own original ideas. In its final form the Corona is a product of global early modern networks of exchange, necessitating the contribution of actors on both sides of the Atlantic. This paper draws on the Corona and archival documents to trace this complex network, demonstrating the fundamentally collaborative nature of early printing in Peru and its simultaneously global, local, (and colonial) orientation. Session Abstract: Association of Print Scholars sponsored Session, Collaborative Printmaking Printmaking, from its earliest expressions to the present day, has generally been characterized by the creative collaboration between various individuals. In the West, renaissance printmaking was characterized by divisions of labor that designated specific tasks of professionals. Designers, woodcutters, engravers, printers, and publishers indicated their respective role on the prints they helped produce with designations such as invenit [invented], delineavit [traced/ delineated], or excudit [printed/published]. The production of Japanese woodcuts of the Edo period was similarly defined by collaboration and specialization. Collaboration also characterized much of the printmaking in the modern period, despite the emphasis on artistic individuality in this time. Artists like Édouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, and Robert Rauschenberg produced some of their most celebrated prints in collaboration with master printmakers. More recently, digital social networks have opened up completely new venues for artistic collaboration.
![Research paper thumbnail of [2019] Redes artísticas, circulación y exposición de reliquias en el Mundo Hispánico](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58791415/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](by Juan Luis González García, Almudena Pérez de Tudela, Cloe Cavero de Carondelet, Chiara Franceschini, Emily Floyd, Escardiel González Estévez, Judith Farré, Maria Berbara, Montserrat Báez, Carmen Fernandez Salvador, and María Cruz de Carlos Varona
En décadas recientes ha habido un notable aumento de estudios sobre las reliquias en el ámbito eu... more En décadas recientes ha habido un notable aumento de estudios sobre las reliquias en el ámbito europeo; en comparación, son mucho menos comunes las aproximaciones renovadoras al respecto para los territorios que abarcó la Monarquía Hispánica. Tampoco abundan trabajos que relacionen la historia religiosa, política y social con aspectos artísticos y materiales de la configuración y presentación de las reliquias. Dados estos precedentes, este Seminario propone, por una parte, ampliar el marco geográfico de estudio bajo la hipótesis de que una visión más globalizada –tanto hispánica como iberoamericana– puede arrojar luz sobre los procesos de circulación y definición estatutaria de las reliquias; y por otra, devolver a las cuestiones expositivas de los relicarios y su emplazamiento la centralidad que merecen y que es además necesaria para comprender tales objetos. Este seminario se inscribe en el marco del Proyecto Nacional I+D de Excelencia: "Spolia Sancta. Fragmentos y envolturas de sacralidad entre el Viejo y el Nuevo Mundo" (HAR2017-82713-P).
Material Religion
Abstract This article centers on the devotional volume Corona de la divinissima María, published ... more Abstract This article centers on the devotional volume Corona de la divinissima María, published in Lima in 1644. This volume primarily takes the form of an extended exegesis of the words spoken by the Virgin Mary as recorded in the Bible, while also exploring the power of the Virgin’s name and narrating the author’s search for her true lived physical appearance. The book includes 37 engraved illustrations. One of these engravings reproduces a painting the author commissioned of the Virgin’s true appearance; the rest diagram or emblematically illustrate powerful words. Indeed, the entire book, called a Corona, or crown, itself shapes an extended metaphor in which the words of prayers directed at the Virgin materialize as spiritual crowns, represented three times in the engraved illustrations. This article argues that, within the 1644 Corona, words have material presence and bear power in multiple ways: as diagrams, as typographic objects, and as spiritual forms.
Digital Humanities and Research Methods in Religious Studies
Religion
ABSTRACT The Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University ... more ABSTRACT The Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University (MAVCOR) does not simply, or even most fundamentally, shape a physical center at Yale University. Although MAVCOR organizes events at Yale and coordinates project cycles involving Yale affiliates as well as scholars from other universities in the United States and around the world, much of MAVCOR’s activity is conducted online. MAVCOR publishes a born-digital, open-access double-blind peer-reviewed journal, MAVCOR Journal. It also features a born-digital exhibition space, the Material Objects Archive. In at least two ways, MAVCOR is deliberately interstitial, invested in the connective spaces between both disciplines and technologies. First, the Center emerged from a desire to promote interdisciplinary conversation among scholars of religion, art history, anthropology, and others engaged with our subjects of inquiry. We have aimed to accomplish this goal by shaping a forum for conversation and an archive for mutual use. Second, MAVCOR engages the need to form a space for peer-reviewed content online in a manner that emphasizes the mutually beneficial relationship of print and digital modes of inquiry. In this work, MAVCOR’s overarching commitment is to promote innovative, substantively researched, thoughtfully constructed scholarship, with robust interdisciplinarity as a fundamental element of form and content.
A Companion to Early Modern Lima
Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture
Conversations: An Online Journal of the Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion, 2014
MAVCOR Journal
was a third order Dominican known for her chastity and acts of penance. After her death in 1617, ... more was a third order Dominican known for her chastity and acts of penance. After her death in 1617, her supporters almost immediately began promoting her sanctity. As a result, Saint Rose of Lima was the first New World saint to be canonized, in 1671. Saint Martin of Porres was born 1579 in Lima, the illegitimate son of a Spanish gentleman and freedwoman of African or possibly indigenous descent. As people of African or indigenous heritage were not allowed to become full members of the religious orders, Martin joined the Dominicans as a donado, or religious servant.
Digital Humanities and Material Religion, 2022
Medieval and earlymodern Christians in Europe wishing to experience the holy sites in Palestine f... more Medieval and earlymodern Christians in Europe wishing to experience the holy sites in Palestine first-hand werep resented with substantial barriers to their journeys:c ost,f amilyo bligations, and distance made it difficult for manyp eople-particularlyf or the poor,f or cloistered religious,a nd for women-to make the long and arduous trip from their homes in Europe. In the fifteenth century real and perceivedOttoman hostility towards travelers traversing their territories rendered it even more challenging to reach the HolyLand.¹ Although therewere manyp opularp ilgrimages hrines on European soil (for example, Santiagod e Compostela and Canterbury Cathedral), no true substitute existed for travel to the holysites of Palestine, both in terms of spiritual formation and in the plenary nature of the indulgences offered. Fifteenth-century Europeans responded to the challenges confronting them by developing "virtual" substitutes-mental pilgrimageu sing booksa nd the imagination, and pilgrimaget oa rtificial landscapes imitating the HolyL and in northern Italy. Today, religious practitioners and scholars of material religion have producedawide rangeo fd igitalizations and virtual experienceso fr eligious spaces that,s imilar to fifteenth-centuryv irtual HolyLand pilgrimages, provide access to places that are otherwise inaccessible to theirv iewers. This article considers contemporary efforts to produce virtual experiences of spaces meaningfullyc onsidered to be religious within the context of historical practices of proxy pilgrimage, while alsoa ddressing the uniquee thical and practical implications of photographic documentation. Virtual experiences of religious spaces offer scholars and religious practitioners visual access to sites otherwise inaccessibledue to distance or other practical barriers. They mayfruitfully be understood in parallel to medieval proxy pilgrimagea sa na cceptable alternative in lieu of physical presencew hen physical presencei su navailable as an option. At the same time, we emphasize the ways in which digital experi