Collecting, Extinguishing, Rewriting and Restaging Cultural Identity and History: Cultural Encyclopedias on New Spain (B07)

• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 181924784

This project examines three cultural encyclopaedias from New Spain (present-day Mexico), which have hitherto been interpreted as the result of missionaries collecting, recording and archiving pre-Hispanic knowledge. If, however, one takes the burning of pre-Hispanic manuscripts into account, which also took place at the time these were compiled, the multiple-text manuscripts the missionaries wrote and illustrated appear in a rather different light. The powerful effect which manuscripts like these encyclopedias had on the processes of rewriting and restaging indigenous knowledge at that time is a key focus of this study.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 950: Collaborative Research Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures
• Applicant Institution: Universität Hamburg
• Project Head: Professorin Dr. Margit Kern