Life in Mexico: Reclaiming Frances Calderón de la Barca as a historian of the Conquest of Mexico

墨西哥生活：将弗朗西斯·卡尔德隆·德·拉·巴尔卡重新塑造为征服墨西哥的历史学家

• 批准号: 2752795
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Nottingham Trent University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2752795
• 关键词: Life; Mexico; Reclaiming; Frances; Calder

This project will explore how a lasting and impactful nineteenth century History of the Conquest ofMexico incorporated contemporary European observations of Indigenous Mexican culture that helped tocreate and perpetuate harmful ideas about 'conquered' peoples that endure today.In 1842, Frances Calderón de la Barca, British wife of the first Spanish ambassador to Mexico sinceIndependence, published Life in Mexico: a series of letters written in English documenting herexperiences. Her friend and famed historian, William H. Prescott, encouraged this publication, but alsorequested that Calderón procure sources and contacts for his History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843).7 / 24Considered a landmark work of scholarship, Prescott's History was integral in cementing notions ofEuropean cultural superiority as key to the conquistadors' success (Clendinnen, 1991), ideas which arestill pervasive in the modern popular imagination.Despite being incredibly popular and published widely in Britain, Spain, USA and Mexico, Calderón's Lifein Mexico has been omitted from the male-dominated historical landscape. Travel narratives by womenduring the nineteenth century were often considered trivial and unscholarly by contemporaries (Leask,1999). However, travel writing as an emerging field of historiography has opened up new approaches tothe genre, with Adriana Méndez Rodenas (2014) paving the way for the examination of femaletransatlantic narratives in particular. Capitalising on this shift in historical methodologies, this project willundertake a close comparative analysis of Frances Calderón de la Barca's letters and travel diaries(available in the British Library; National Archives UK and Harvard's Houghton Library) and Prescott'sHistory, examining the influence that Calderón had on the narrative; tracing her influence further into thewider historiography of the Conquest of Mexico. The research aims are- to explore the marginalisation of women's voices in historical narratives.- to assess how far Calderón's observations of nineteenth century Mexicans contributed to Prescott'snegative representation of sixteenth century Indigenous peoples during the Conquest.- to examine how these narratives contributed to the continued oppression of 'conquered' peoples,despite their apparent independence from their colonial 'masters'.- to explore Calderón's role in perpetuating harmful ideas about Native inferiority and to contextualisethem using postcolonial methodologies to explore the nineteenth century European anxieties aboutfailing imperialism that contributed to a resurgence in 'conquest narratives'.These early histories still contribute to racist tropes, such as the presentation of Indigenous civilisationsas 'ancient aliens' in recent popular media. Attempts to question these narratives are often met withaccusations of 'wokeness,' or even 're-writing history' due to a lack of widespread understanding abouthow histories are created according to changing political landscapes, and the damage they can cause tomarginalised peoples. This project aims to deconstruct these concepts to help change public perceptionsand facilitate discourse through collaboration with public-facing cultural and educational partners linkedto my supervisory team, such as Mexicolore.co.uk and the Centre for Mexican Studies.Year one will focus on secondary material; exploring published collections of primary sources, andplanning research trips for year two; with year three concentrating on re-drafting and submitting thethesis.

该项目将探讨持久而有影响力的 19 世纪墨西哥征服史如何融入当代欧洲对墨西哥土著文化的观察，这些观察有助于创造和延续有关“被征服”民族的有害观念，这些观念一直延续到今天。 1842 年，弗朗西斯·卡尔德隆·德·拉·巴尔卡 (Frances Calderón de la Barca)，自独立以来首位西班牙驻墨西哥大使的英国妻子出版了《墨西哥生活：一系列用英文写成的信件》，记录了她的经历，她的朋友、著名历史学家威廉·H·普雷斯科特对此表示鼓励。出版物，但也要求卡尔德隆为其《征服墨西哥史》（1843 年）获取资料来源和联系方式。7 / 24 普雷斯科特的《征服墨西哥史》被认为是一部具有里程碑意义的学术著作，它在巩固欧洲文化优越性的观念方面发挥了不可或缺的作用，这是征服者成功的关键（ Clendinnen，1991），这些想法在现代大众的想象中仍然普遍存在。尽管在英国非常受欢迎并广泛出版，西班牙、美国和墨西哥，卡尔德隆的《墨西哥生活》已被排除在十九世纪女性主导的历史景观之外，同时代的人常常认为旅行写作琐碎且缺乏学术性（Leask，1999）。史学为这一类型开辟了新的途径，阿德里亚娜·门德斯·罗德纳斯 (Adriana Méndez Rodenas，2014) 为研究跨大西洋女性叙事铺平了道路。特别是利用历史方法论的这一转变，该项目将对弗朗西斯·卡尔德隆·德·拉·巴尔卡的信件和旅行日记（可在大英图书馆、英国国家档案馆和哈佛大学霍顿图书馆查阅）和普雷斯科特的历史进行仔细的比较分析，考察其影响。卡尔德龙对叙事的影响；进一步追溯她对征服墨西哥的更广泛的史学的影响。叙述。-评估卡尔德隆对十九世纪墨西哥人的观察在多大程度上促成了普雷斯科特在征服期间对十六世纪土著人民的负面描述。-研究这些叙述如何促成对“被征服”人民的持续压迫，尽管他们明显独立于他们的统治殖民“大师”。- 探索卡尔德龙在延续关于土著自卑的有害思想方面所扮演的角色，并使用后殖民方法论将其置于语境中，以探索十九世纪欧洲的焦虑这些早期历史仍然助长了种族主义的比喻，例如最近流行媒体将土著文明描述为“古代外星人”。质疑这些叙述的尝试常常遭到“觉醒”的指责。 ”，甚至“重写历史”，因为人们对如何根据不断变化的政治格局创造历史以及它们可能对边缘化人民造成的损害缺乏广泛的了解。旨在解构这些概念，通过与我的监督团队相关的面向公众的文化和教育合作伙伴（例如 Mexicolore.co.uk 和墨西哥研究中心）合作，帮助改变公众看法并促进讨论。第一年将侧重于辅助材料；探索已出版的第一手资料集，并规划第二年的研究旅行；第三年专注于重新起草和提交论文。