Spring 2012 Events

10 January 2012, 3:00 pm, Smathers 1A

Richard Kagan (Johns Hopkins University)

Policía and the Plaza: Utopia and Dystopia in the Colonial City

The Spanish American colonial city is often distinguished by its central plaza or square. These spaces still serve as the focus of urban life. But how did they come into existence? What purposes did they serve? Using maps and city views dating from the colonial era, this lecture explores the various meanings attached to the plaza, the differing ways they were used, together with their representation in both literature and art of the colonial era.

Richard Kagan specializes in the history of Habsburg Spain and its overseas empire. He is author, among other publications, of Students and Society in Early Modern Spain, Lawsuits and Litigants in Castile, 1500-1700, Lucrecia’s Dreams: Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth-Century Spain, Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493-1793, and Clio and the Crown: The Politics of History in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. He is also editor, with Geoffrey Parker, of Spain, Europe, and the Atlantic World; editor and translator, with Abigail Dwyer, of Inquisitorial Inquiries: The Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics; and editor, with Philip Morgan, of Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500-1800.

• This event is free and open to the public

• Reception to follow.
• For more information, contact ialtman@ufl.edu
• Lecture sponsored by the University of Florida Department of History, George A. Smathers Library, Center for Latin American Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Historic Preservation Program, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies

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