Karen Melvin
Thomas Hedley Reynolds Professor of History
Associations
History
Pettengill Hall, Room 123
Latin American and Latinx Studies
Pettengill Hall, Room 123
About
B.A., Boston University; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
BIOGRAPHY
I’m a scholar of colonial Mexico and the early modern Catholic world. I’m currently writing a book about two of the first international charities: rescuing Christian captives from North Africa and maintaining a Catholic presence in the Holy Land. During the seventeenth through early-nineteenth centuries, New Spain provided more funds for these projects than anywhere else in the world. I want to know why.
My publications include:
- Building Colonial Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain, 1570-1800. Stanford University Press, 2012
- Imagining Histories of Colonial Latin America: Essays on Methods and Practice. Co-edited with Sylvia Sellers-García, University of New Mexico Press, 2017
- Other articles and book chapters can be found here.
- I’m also a principal investigator for Reading the Inquisition, a collaborative digital history project that presents inquisition cases as original documents, Spanish transcriptions, and English translations.
TEACHING
My teaching encompasses a wide range of Latin America’s history from Aztecs to the present day, including courses open to all students:
HIST/LALS 181 Creating Latin America: A broad overview of Latin America from indigenous societies before the arrival of Europeans through 21st-century globalization.
HIST/LALS 270 The Spanish Empire: From Madrid to Manila: A history of early globalization through the lens of the first global empire.
HIST 295 / LALS 295 / REL 295 Montezuma’s Mexico: Aztecs and their World: Students learn about what life was like for people in the Aztec empire and beliefs about how the cosmos worked.
HIST/LALS s27: The Mexican Revolution: Students debate issues from the first major social revolution of the 20th-century.
I also offer smaller seminar classes for sophomores, juniors, and seniors, including:
HIST/LALS/REL 301Y: The Spanish Inquisition: Students use Inquisition cases—including for blasphemy, heresy, and witchcraft—to better understand people and societies of Spain and New Spain.
HIST 301Y / LALS 303 / REL 314 The Spanish Inquisition: Students use Inquisition cases—including for blasphemy, bigamy, and witchcraft—to better understand people and societies of Spain and New Spain.
Expertise
Current Courses
Fall Semester 2024
HIST 270 / LALS 270
From Madrid to Manila: Globalization and the Spanish Empire
HIST 457
Senior Thesis
Winter Semester 2025
HIST 181 / LALS 181
Creating Latin America: A History
HIST 301W / LALS 301W
Latin America during the Cold War