Reading in New Spain, Inquisition, and Literacy (feat. Andrea Reyes Elizondo)
In this episode, we talk to Andrea Reyes Elizondo, a PhD candidate at the University of Leiden, about her research in the history of reading, which focuses on influences on reading in various social groups in New Spain in the eighteenth century. We discuss the answer to “what is reading” then vs. now, and how it relates heavily on access to resources, connections to power and positions in society, and how сritical understanding complex texts is to literacy.
We continue to talk about readers during the Inquisition in New Spain, and Andrea provides us with a few cases of readers who push back against power.
And of course, we ask Andrea what she is currently reading!
Also: Are Bethany, Natalia, and Laura trying to proselytize people into the cult of Book Studies? You have to listen to find this out and so much more!
Some of the books mentioned are:
Proust and the Squid by Maryann Wolf
The AI Con by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna
Pixel by Krisztina Tóth
Andrea Reyes Elizondo is a self-funded PhD candidate at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS [https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/andrea-reyes-elizondo/publications]).
Reyes Elizondo researches the history of reading under the supervision of Prof. Paul Hoftijzer and Prof. Adriaan van der Weel. Her dissertation focuses on reconstructing the possibilities of reading for various groups in a society by looking into the context of this cultural technique and the elements that influence it: education, occupation, sociality ofconsumption, culture, and the legal and political system thatregulated the access to texts. Her geographical area of research is New Spain during the eighteenth century. She has written several blog posts about the different aspects of reading: sonority [https://www.leidenartsinsocietyblog.nl/articles/the-many-meanings-of-reading-1-sonority], imagery [https://www.leidenartsinsocietyblog.nl/articles/the-many-meanings-of-reading-2-imagery], speed [https://www.leidenartsinsocietyblog.nl/articles/the-many-meanings-of-reading-3-speed], approved texts [https://www.leidenartsinsocietyblog.nl/articles/the-many-meanings-of-reading-4-approved-texts], and distance [https://www.leidenartsinsocietyblog.nl/articles/the-many-meanings-of-reading-5-distance].She has also written about the ethical considerations fordifferentiating textual from media interpretation [https://hdl.handle.net/1887/84705] when studying past periods, and on the challenges andopportunities for book historical research in Mexico's notarialarchive [http://doi.org/10.1163/9789004542969_011].
Reyes Elizondo is also a researcher at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University where she works on projects related to scientific integrity [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-024-00467-3] and openscience [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-024-00467-3], and where she coordinates the focal area ResearchEvaluation & Culture.
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Intro music by Leonardo Granados
