New Philology
Encyclopedia
New Philology is a school within ethnohistory
that seeks to describe the history
of colonized people largely by using the colonized peoples' own written sources to understand their perspective of their own history. The New Philology therefore focuses on the translation and interpretation of sources written in the colonized peoples' own languages - sources that have often been neglected due to their difficult accessibility. Important historians working in the New Philology tradition are James Lockhart
, Susan Schroeder, Matthew Restall
, Stephanie Wood and Robert Haskett.
who, in the early 1970s, began studying sources in the Nahuatl language that had previously not been studied by historians. Rather than trying to reach knowledge about events in the colonial or pre-colonial period from studying the sources, as was the usual approach, he attempted to achieve understanding about the indigenous societies that produced the sources. This approach made possible the use of sources that had earlier been deemed to be too difficult to understand or too problematic to interpret, e.g. the documents known as Primordial titles, colonial legal documents in the Nahuatl language, testaments and acts of the colonial administration.
Ethnohistory
Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs by examining historical records. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may not exist today....
that seeks to describe the history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
of colonized people largely by using the colonized peoples' own written sources to understand their perspective of their own history. The New Philology therefore focuses on the translation and interpretation of sources written in the colonized peoples' own languages - sources that have often been neglected due to their difficult accessibility. Important historians working in the New Philology tradition are 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...
, Susan Schroeder, 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...
, Stephanie Wood and Robert Haskett.
Development
The school was developed from the 1970s and onwards, reaching maturity only recently. The leading figure in the early development of the New Philological historiographical approach was James LockhartJames 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...
who, in the early 1970s, began studying sources in the Nahuatl language that had previously not been studied by historians. Rather than trying to reach knowledge about events in the colonial or pre-colonial period from studying the sources, as was the usual approach, he attempted to achieve understanding about the indigenous societies that produced the sources. This approach made possible the use of sources that had earlier been deemed to be too difficult to understand or too problematic to interpret, e.g. the documents known as Primordial titles, colonial legal documents in the Nahuatl language, testaments and acts of the colonial administration.
Important works
A selection of important works written in the New Philology tradition:- The Book of Tributes: Early Sixteenth-Century nahuatl Censuses from Morelos. S. L. Cline, (Ed.), 1993, Museo de Antropología e Historia, Archivo Histórico Collección Antigua, vol. 549. UCLA Latin American Center Publications
- Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Indian Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca, Robert Haskett, 1991, University of New Mexico Press.
- Visions of Paradise: Primordial Titles and Mesoamerican History in Cuernavaca, 2005, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
- Nahuatl in the Middle Years: Language contact Phenomena in Texts of the Colonial Period, Frances Karttunen & James Lockhart, 1976, University of California Press, Berkeley, California.
- Nahuas and Spaniards:Postconquest Central Mexican History and Philology, James Lockhart, 1991, Stanford University Press, UCLA Latin American Center Publications
- Transcending conquest: Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico, Stephanie Wood, 2003,University of Oklahoma Press, Norman: USA
- Seven Myths of the Spanish ConquestSeven Myths of the Spanish ConquestSeven Myths of the Spanish Conquest is a 2003 non-fiction book by ethnohistorian Matthew Restall which exposes seven myths about the Spanish colonization of the Americas that have come to be widely believed to be true...
, Matthew Restall, 2003 Oxford University Press (2003) ISBN 0-19-516077-0