About

Maria-Elena Martinez

Associate Professor of History and American Studies and Ethnicity

Contact Information
E-mail: martinem@college.usc.edu
Phone: (213) 740-1675
Office: SOS 267

 

Biographical Sketch
María Elena Martínez is an Associate Professor of Latin American History and American Studies and Ethnicity. During 2008-2009 she was Co-Director of the Tepoztlán Institute for the Transnational History of the Americas, an institute that organizes an annual conference in Mexico in order to promote transnational histories of the Americas and facilitate intensive dialogue between U.S. and Latin American graduate students and junior and senior faculty members. Her work focuses on colonial Mexico, the cultural connections between Spain and the Americas, and more generally the formation of the Iberian Atlantic world. She teaches courses on Latin American history, slavery in the Atlantic world, early modern religion and race, and gender and sexuality in Spanish America. Martinez’s publications include a number of articles on space, religion, gender, and race in New Spain as well as her new book "Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico" (Stanford University Press, 2008). Currently she is working on the relationship of Spanish colonial law and indigenous “genealogical histories” in central Mexico and well as on the intersection of scientific and racial thinking in the eighteenth-century Spanish Atlantic world. Martinez’s most recent fellowships include the ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship, the Barbara Thom Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Fellowship for Junior Faculty, and USC's James H. Zumberge Research and Innovation Individual Faculty Grant. Her dissertation, titled "The Spanish Concept of limpieza de sangre and the Emergence of the 'Race/Caste System' in the Viceroyalty of New Spain," was passed with distinction and received the 2003 Lewis Hanke Dissertation Prize.
 

Education
B.A. Latin American Studies, Northwestern University, 1/1988
M.A. History, University of Chicago, 1/1992
Ph.D. Latin American History, University of Chicago, 1/2001
 

Affiliations with Research Centers, Labs, and Other Institutions
The Tepoztlan Institute for the Transnational History of the Americas, Collective Member,http://www.lclark.edu/~tepo/
 

Conferences and Other Presentations

Conference Presentations
""Limpieza de sangre: Cambios y rupturas." ", "Purity of blood" in Spain and Colonial Spanish America. , Talk/Oral Presentation, , Mexico City , Colegio de México, Invited, Fall 2007   
""Indigenous Texts and Images: Communal Histories and Genealogies from Central Mexico." ", "The Power of Images: Images of Power in Colonial Latin America", Talk/Oral Presentation, , University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Museum, Invited, Fall 2006   
""León y Gama’s Treatise on Skin Color and the Enlightened Creole ‘Science’ of Race in Eighteenth-Century New Spain." ", The Sciences of Race in the Long Eigtheenth Century, Talk/Oral Presentation, , USC, USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute, Spring 2006   
 

Publications

Book
Martinez, M. (2008). Genealogical Fictions: Limpieza de Sangre, Religion, and Gender in Colonial Mexico. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
 

Book Chapter
Martinez, M. (2007). "Interrogating Blood Lines: ‘Purity of Blood, the Inquisition, and Casta Categories in Early Colonial Mexico.". Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press.
Martinez, M. (2006). "The Language, Genealogy, and Classification of ‘Race’ in Colonial Mexico". (Vol. chapter pages tbd). Stanford, CA: Race and Classification: The Case of Mexican America/Stanford University Press.
 

Journal Article
Martinez, M. (2004). “The Black Blood of New Spain: Limpieza de Sangre, Racial Violence, and Gendered Power in Early Colonial Mexico,”. William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series/Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. Vol. Vol. LXI (July 2004), pp. pp. 479-520..
 

Magazine/Trade Publication
Martinez, M. ""Adelina Anthony"." COLA [City of Los Angeles] 2008 Catalog of Individual Artist Fellowships, 2008,
 

Other
Martinez, M. Space, Order, and Group Identities in a Spanish Colonial Town: Puebla de los Angeles, The Collective and the Public in Latin America: Cultural Identities and Political Order, eds. Luis Roniger and Tamar Herzog, Brighton, UK and Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press, 2000, Pp. 13-36.
Martinez, M. Limpieza de Sangre, Encyclopedia of Mexico, ed. Michael Werner,Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
Martinez, M. The Conquests of Men, Review of Richard Trexler's Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Martinez, M. Collaborated in the research and writing of Marco legal de los derechos de la mujer en México, ed. Alicia Elena Pérez Duarte (Mexico City: Consejo Nacional de la Población, 1995). Prepared for the IV World Conference on Women, Beijing, 1995.
 

Honors and Awards
USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute Faculty Fellowship , Fall 2006   
Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty, woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, 6/2004-6/2005  
ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship, 2004  
Barbara Thom Postdoctoral Fellowship , 2003-2004   
James H. Zumberge Research and Innovation Individual Faculty Grant , 2003-2004   
American Bar Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, 1999-2001  
Fulbright Award, Fellowship, 1997-1998  
 
 
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