| Date & Time: | 2/19/2010 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM |
| Department: | Early Cultures |
| Event Title: | Speak, Write, Paint: Colonial Scripts and Indigenous Literacies in Latin America and Beyond |
| Place: | Humanities Gateway 1010 (Humanities Conference Room) |
 Rachel O'Toole, History, UCI Adriana Michele Campos Johnson, Comparative Literature, UCI What does literacy create? Indigenous Americans employed quipus (knotted cords), testimony, and logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs to record goods, display hierarchies, and re-write histories. In Mexico and the Andes, indigenous people quickly adopted European writing in the sixteenth century to challenge Spanish colonial practices as well as create documents of internal community practices. A diversity of communication practices continued into the colonial period to suggest that indigenous people employed particular forms for distinct reasons. This symposium invites a discussion of what literacy meant to indigenous people, how writing was deployed, and what visual forms stimulated in their audiences. By asking how indigenous people employed their literacies, we explore how form and function intertwined with the construction of power relations within Spanish colonialism. Organized by Rachel O'Toole, Assistant Professor of History, UC Irvine. rotoole@uci.edu | |