Lisa Sousa
Encyclopedia
Lisa Sousa is an American academic historian active in the field of Latin American studies
. A specialist in the colonial-era history of Latin America
and of Colonial Mexico in particular, Sousa is noted for her research, commentary, and translations of colonial Mesoamerican literature
and Nahuatl
-language historical texts. She has also published research on historical and contemporary indigenous peoples in Mexico, the roles of women in indigenous societies and cultural definitions of gender
. Sousa holds a position as assistant professor in the History Department at Occidental College
in Los Angeles, California
.
. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) as an undergraduate, completing a B.A.
in Latin American studies
in 1990. Her postgraduate studies in Latin American history were also undertaken at UCLA, where her research focused on the history and experience of women and indigenous cultures in colonial-era Mexico
.
Sousa first completed her Master's degree
in 1992 before entering the doctorate studies program, and was awarded her PhD
in 1998. Her doctoral dissertation, "Women in Native Societies and Cultures of Colonial Mexico", won UCLA's Mary Wolstonecraft Dissertation Award for the best thesis in Women's studies
.
As her PhD was being completed, Sousa obtained a position as adjunct professor at Occidental College in the 1997–98 academic year. After a brief term as a visiting lecturer at UCLA, Sousa took up an assistant professorship at Occidental, from 1998 onwards. In addition to her continuing research and publications in the field, Sousa teaches a number of related courses in Latin American history
, Mesoamerican literature
and gender studies
, and also provides instruction in learning Nahuatl.
, an indigenous language of the central Mexican altiplano
and lingua franca
of the Aztec Empire at the time of the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.
While studying at UCLA in the 1990s Sousa conducted research and published papers and conference presentations on a number of themes relating to women and gender among indigenous cultures in Mexico. Themes analysed by Sousa include rationalisation of and attitudes to violence against women
, the representation and participation of women in crime and colonial-era rebellion, and slavery of indigenous groups in the New World
. Her publications and seminars also explore the nature of gender roles in Mesoamerican cultures
, particularly among Nahua, Mixtec and Zapotec peoples of the pre- and post-conquest eras.
In 1998 as her PhD was being completed, Sousa co-edited and translated an English-language edition of the Huei tlamahuiçoltica
, a 17th-century Nahuatl-language manuscript that is central to the claims of the Guadalupan apparition
to Juan Diego, whose symbolism and religious imagery is a prominent icon in the practice of Roman Catholicism in Mexico. The book, The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega's Huei tlamahuiçoltica of 1649, jointly published by Stanford University Press
and UCLA's Latin American Center, also contains analysis of and translated excerpts from the 1648 document, Imagen de la Virgen María, Madre de Dios de Guadalupe by Miguel Sánchez
. Together with her collaborators, the noted Guadalupan scholar Stafford Poole
and UCLA emeritus
professor in colonial Latin American history James Lockhart
, Sousa affirms that Luis Laso de la Vega
was indeed the principal author of the Huei tlamahuiçoltica, and that portions of the work bear affinities with Sánchez's document. They regard Sánchez's Imagen de la Virgen María as the earliest known written account of the Guadalupan apparition, and that consequently these two mid-17th-century texts are the principal origins of the apparition story, and not any earlier source or tradition contemporaneous with the events purported to have taken place more than a century before those documents were written.
IN 2004, Sousa and UCLA professor Kevin Terraciano were presented with the Robert F. Heizer Article Award by the American Society for Ethnohistory, for their co-authored paper "The 'Original Conquest' of Oaxaca: Nahua and Mixtec Accounts of the Spanish Conquest", published the preceding year in the journal Ethnohistory
.
In 2005 Sousa co-edited and with Matthew Restall
and Terraciano a volume of translated colonial-era Nahuatl-, Mayan
- and Mixtec-language primary source texts, under the title Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico and Guatemala.
Latin American Studies
Latin American studies is an academic discipline dealing with the study of Latin America and Latin Americans.-Definition:Latin American studies critically examines the history, culture, politics, and experiences of Latin Americans in Latin America and often also elsewhere .Latin American studies...
. A specialist in the colonial-era history of Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
and of Colonial Mexico in particular, Sousa is noted for her research, commentary, and translations of colonial Mesoamerican literature
Mesoamerican literature
The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a...
and Nahuatl
Nahuatl
Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...
-language historical texts. She has also published research on historical and contemporary indigenous peoples in Mexico, the roles of women in indigenous societies and cultural definitions of gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
. Sousa holds a position as assistant professor in the History Department at Occidental College
Occidental College
Occidental College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887, Occidental College, or "Oxy" as it is called by students and alumni, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast...
in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
Studies and career
Lisa Sousa was born 1962 in Sebastopol, CaliforniaSebastopol, California
Sebastopol is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, approximately north of San Francisco. The population was 7,379 at the 2010 census, but its businesses also serve surrounding rural portions of Sonoma County, totaling about 50,000 people...
. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
(UCLA) as an undergraduate, completing a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Latin American studies
Latin American Studies
Latin American studies is an academic discipline dealing with the study of Latin America and Latin Americans.-Definition:Latin American studies critically examines the history, culture, politics, and experiences of Latin Americans in Latin America and often also elsewhere .Latin American studies...
in 1990. Her postgraduate studies in Latin American history were also undertaken at UCLA, where her research focused on the history and experience of women and indigenous cultures in colonial-era Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
Sousa first completed her Master's degree
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in 1992 before entering the doctorate studies program, and was awarded her PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in 1998. Her doctoral dissertation, "Women in Native Societies and Cultures of Colonial Mexico", won UCLA's Mary Wolstonecraft Dissertation Award for the best thesis in Women's studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
.
As her PhD was being completed, Sousa obtained a position as adjunct professor at Occidental College in the 1997–98 academic year. After a brief term as a visiting lecturer at UCLA, Sousa took up an assistant professorship at Occidental, from 1998 onwards. In addition to her continuing research and publications in the field, Sousa teaches a number of related courses in Latin American history
History of Latin America
Latin America refers to countries in the Americas where Romance languages are spoken. This definition, however, is not meant to include Canada, in spite of its large French-speaking population....
, Mesoamerican literature
Mesoamerican literature
The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a...
and gender studies
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
, and also provides instruction in learning Nahuatl.
Research
During the course of her studies at UCLA Sousa obtained a proficiency in Classical NahuatlClassical Nahuatl
Classical Nahuatl is a term used to describe the variants of the Nahuatl language that were spoken in the Valley of Mexico — and central Mexico as a lingua franca — at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Mexico...
, an indigenous language of the central Mexican altiplano
Mexican Plateau
The Central Mexican Plateau, also known as the Mexican Altiplano or Altiplanicie Mexicana, is a large arid-to-semiarid plateau that occupies much of northern and central Mexico...
and lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of the Aztec Empire at the time of the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.
While studying at UCLA in the 1990s Sousa conducted research and published papers and conference presentations on a number of themes relating to women and gender among indigenous cultures in Mexico. Themes analysed by Sousa include rationalisation of and attitudes to violence against women
Violence against women
Violence against women is a technical term used to collectively refer to violent acts that are primarily or exclusively committed against women...
, the representation and participation of women in crime and colonial-era rebellion, and slavery of indigenous groups in the New World
Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies
Slavery in the Spanish colonies began with the enslavement of the local indigenous peoples in their homelands by Spanish settlers. Enslavement and production quotas were used to force the local labor to bring a return on the expedition and colonization investments...
. Her publications and seminars also explore the nature of gender roles in Mesoamerican cultures
Gender roles in Mesoamerica
Gender roles in Mesoamerica are established from birth. Mesoamerica or Meso-America is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of...
, particularly among Nahua, Mixtec and Zapotec peoples of the pre- and post-conquest eras.
In 1998 as her PhD was being completed, Sousa co-edited and translated an English-language edition of the Huei tlamahuiçoltica
Huei tlamahuiçoltica
Huei tlamahuiçoltica omonexiti in ilhuicac tlatocaçihuapilli Santa Maria totlaçonantzin Guadalupe in nican huei altepenahuac Mexico itocayocan Tepeyacac Huei tlamahuiçoltica omonexiti in ilhuicac tlatocaçihuapilli Santa Maria totlaçonantzin Guadalupe in nican huei altepenahuac Mexico itocayocan...
, a 17th-century Nahuatl-language manuscript that is central to the claims of the Guadalupan apparition
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe , also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe is a celebrated Catholic icon of the Virgin Mary.According to tradition, on December 9, 1531 Juan Diego, a simple indigenous peasant, had a vision of a young woman while he was on a hill in the Tepeyac desert, near Mexico City. The lady...
to Juan Diego, whose symbolism and religious imagery is a prominent icon in the practice of Roman Catholicism in Mexico. The book, The Story of Guadalupe: Luis Laso de la Vega's Huei tlamahuiçoltica of 1649, jointly published by Stanford University Press
Stanford University Press
The Stanford University Press is the publishing house of Stanford University. In 1892, an independent publishing company was established at the university. The first use of the name "Stanford University Press" in a book's imprinting occurred in 1895...
and UCLA's Latin American Center, also contains analysis of and translated excerpts from the 1648 document, Imagen de la Virgen María, Madre de Dios de Guadalupe by Miguel Sánchez
Miguel Sánchez
Miguel Sánchez was a Novohispanic priest, writer and theologian. He is most renowned as the author of the 1648 publication Imagen de la Virgen María, a description and theological interpretation of an apparition to Juan Diego of the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe which is the first published...
. Together with her collaborators, the noted Guadalupan scholar Stafford Poole
Stafford Poole
The Reverend Stafford Poole, C.M., is a priest, full-time research historian, formerly a history professor and president of St. John's Seminary College in Camarillo, California. He is known for his extensive writings about the Virgin of Guadalupe.Poole was born in Oxnard, California, the son of...
and UCLA emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
professor in colonial Latin American history James Lockhart
James Lockhart (historian)
James Marvin Lockhart is a U.S. historian specializing in the history of colonial Latin America.Born in Huntington, West Virginia, Lockhart attended West Virginia University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison . He is an expert in the study of historical sources in the Nahuatl language and...
, Sousa affirms that Luis Laso de la Vega
Luis Laso de la Vega
Luis Laso de la Vega was a 17th century Mexican priest and lawyer. He is known chiefly as the author of the Huei tlamahuiçoltica , an account published in 1649 and written in the Nahuatl language, which contains a narrative describing the reported apparition of the Virgin Mary before Saint Juan...
was indeed the principal author of the Huei tlamahuiçoltica, and that portions of the work bear affinities with Sánchez's document. They regard Sánchez's Imagen de la Virgen María as the earliest known written account of the Guadalupan apparition, and that consequently these two mid-17th-century texts are the principal origins of the apparition story, and not any earlier source or tradition contemporaneous with the events purported to have taken place more than a century before those documents were written.
IN 2004, Sousa and UCLA professor Kevin Terraciano were presented with the Robert F. Heizer Article Award by the American Society for Ethnohistory, for their co-authored paper "The 'Original Conquest' of Oaxaca: Nahua and Mixtec Accounts of the Spanish Conquest", published the preceding year in the journal Ethnohistory
Ethnohistory (journal)
Ethnohistory is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1954 and published quarterly by Duke University Press on behalf of the American Society for Ethnohistory. It publishes articles and reviews in the fields of ethnohistory, historical anthropology and social and cultural history...
.
In 2005 Sousa co-edited and with Matthew Restall
Matthew Restall
Matthew Restall is an ethnohistorian and Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History, Anthropology, and Women's Studies, Director of Latin American Studies, and Director of LiLACS at the Pennsylvania State University...
and Terraciano a volume of translated colonial-era Nahuatl-, Mayan
Mayan languages
The Mayan languages form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize and Honduras...
- and Mixtec-language primary source texts, under the title Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico and Guatemala.
External links
- faculty profile, History Department, Occidental College