| Ph.D. Candidate in Colonial Mexican History (C.Phil 2007); M.A., Latin American History, UCLA, 2006; M.F.A., Creative Nonfiction, Penn State, 2004; B.A., Creative Writing, Univ. of San Francisco, 2000 |
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| E-mail: veraicon@ucla.edu |
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| Subfield |
Local Religion; Late Medieval/Early Modern Spain; The Tridentine Reforms; Franciscan History and Spirituality; Comparative 16th c Catholic evangelizations; indigenous histories; community histories
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| Research |
My dissertation, "Remapping a Sacred Mesoamerican Landscape: The Sons of Queztalcoatl, the Sons of St. Francis, and the Christianization of San Pedro Cholula, 'la ciudad sagrada,' 1529-1640," analyzes the contributions of both native Cholulteca and friars in remapping Cholula's sacred topography. I argue that the shifting landscape in Cholula is as much due to indigenous agency as to Franciscan pragmatism. Whereas the friars capitalized upon the region's pre-hispanic sacred identity to establish one of the most important Franciscan evangelization complexes in central New Spain, the local Nahuas utilized Franciscan presence in Cholula to retain their pre-hispanic spiritual and political dominance in the region.
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| Publications |
• "Quetzalcoatl’s Enlightened City: A Close Reading of Bernard Picart’s Engraving of Cholollan/Cholula," _The First Global Vision of Religion: Bernard Picart's Ceremonies and Religious Customs of All the Peoples of the World_, edited by Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt, The Getty Research Institute, forthcoming 2010
• "Mesoamerican Religions: Colonial Cultures," First author, The Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, MacMillan Reference, 2005
• Unpublished book manuscript, _Separated by Faith: Memoirs of a Traditional Catholic Daughter_, submitted in partial fulfillment of the MFA at Penn State, August 2004
• "Stirring the Ashes," Book review of "Mexican Phoenix, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Image and Tradition Across Five Centuries" by D.A. Brading, CRISIS Magazine, July/August 2002, Vol. 20, No.7
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| Grants and Awards |
• Grant recipient, Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities to support research in Seville and Madrid (forthcoming spring 2010)
• Hoxie Bonus Fund Grant, UCLA History, to support research in Spain (forthcoming spring 2010)
• Tinker Travel Award, Latin American Institute, UCLA, for research in Mexico (August 2009)
• Penn State-Mellon Foundation Dissertation Seminar Fellow (June 2009)
• Academy of American Franciscan History Dissertation Fellow (2008-09)
• IIE Fulbright Garcia-Robles Fellow (Cholula, Puebla, México; 2007-08)
• Mellon Summer Institute Fellow, Spanish Paleography, UT-Austin (June 2007)
• Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Award, UCLA Graduate Division (Summer 2005 & 2006)
• Invited researcher, La Biblioteca Franciscana, Centro de Estudios Humanísticos Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, La Universidad de Las Américas, Convento de San Gabriel, San Pedro Cholula, Puebla, México (Summer 2005 & 2006)
• Graduate Research Mentorship Award, UCLA Graduate Division (2005-06)
• Eugene Cota-Robles Fellow, UCLA History Department (2004-09)
• Ben Euwema Memorial Travel Scholarship to attend the Canonization of Juan Diego, Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mexico City, México, July 31, 2002, English Department, Penn State
• Bunton-Waller Fellow, English Department (Penn State 2001-04)
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| Advisors |
• Dr. Kevin Terraciano (chair; colonial Mexico)
• Dr. Teófilo Ruiz (late medieval/early modern Spain)
• Dr. Robin Derby (modern Latin America)
• Dr. Charlene Villaseñor Black (religious art history in the Spanish Empire)
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| Conference Presentations |
• Panel organizer and chair, "Spanish America, Portuguese America, and Early America: The Ethnohistories of Evangelization in the New World" and individual presenter, "The Sons of St. Francis, the Sons of Quetzalcóatl, and the Re-mapping of a Sacred Mesoamerican Landscape," American Society for Ethnohistory, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 2009
• "'Que mi cuerpo sea sepultado con el hábito de San Francisco:' Franciscan Spiritual Economy in late Sixteenth-Century Spanish-Indigenous Cholula," American Historical Association, New York, NY, January 2009
• Panel organizer, "Colonial Conflict and Collaboration: Native People in the Development of Urban Spaces and City Culture in Sixteenth-Century Mexico" and individual presenter, "A Satellite Community in Colonial Puebla de Los Angeles: el Barrio de Santiago Cholultecapan," American Society for Ethnohistory, Eugene, Oregon, November 2008
• "Quetzalcoatl’s Enlightened City: A Close Reading of Bernard Picart’s Engraving of Cholollan/Cholula," At the Interface of Religion and Cosmopolitanism: Bernard Picart's _Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses de Tous les Peuples du Monde_ (1723-1743) and the European Enlightenment, co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for 17th- & 18th-Century Studies, the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA, December 2007
• "From Mesoamerican Holy Site to Franciscan Evangelization Center: Nahuas, Friars, and the Negotiation of Christianity in Sixteenth-Century San Pedro Cholula, Puebla, México," American Catholic Historical Association, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, March 2007
• Panel organizer, "Encountering Resistance in Colonial Mexico: Iberian Institutions, Indigenous Communities, and the Negotiation of Authority," and individual presenter, "'We have built for you a sumptuous monastery': Religion and Community Identity in Colonial Cholula," American Society for Ethnohistory, Williamsburg, VA, November 2006
• "'They Form a Path Like Ants': Institutionalizing Confession among the Nahuas in Sixteenth-Century New Spain," American Society for Ethnohistory, Santa Fe, NM, November 2005
• Panel co-organizer, "Confession In the Early Modern Spanish World," Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, Atlanta, GA, October 2005
• "The Construction of an Attack: The Cholula Massacre from Cortés to the Florentine Codex," Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, October 2004
• "The Aztec, the Incan, and the North American Indian: Constructions of Race in Joel Barlow's 'The Vision of Columbus,'" Globalization of the Americas 1492-2002 Conference, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, February 2003
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