Sonya Lipsett-Rivera: Towards a Post-Humanist History: Animals and Men in Colonial Mexico

Tuesday February 25, 1014, from 12 to 1:30 in the History Lounge, 4th Floor, Paterson Hall.

After a lifetime of living and working with various animals, I feel a natural connection to post-humanism. I first began to think about the ways in which animals and humans were similar in many ways when working with honor but I did not have the academic language to argue my case. At the moment, I am working on masculinity and when I went into the archives, I found that men in colonial Mexico, unlike the women whom I studied previously, had many interactions with various domesticated animals. I found really evocative narratives that shed some light on the ways that people and animals interrelated in this period and when I began to write, I discovered post-humanism.  My primary research and writing at the moment is on masculinity but I have begun another research project on horses in New Spain in which I want to explore their presence in society both urban and rural, their circulations and usage by various groups and especially their symbolic and cultural import within Mexican society.

Professor Lipsett-Rivera is a member of the Department of History, Carleton University.