Ranging geographically from Tierra del Fuego to California and the Caribbean, and historically from early European sightings and the utopian projects of would-be colonizers to the present-day cultural politics of migrant communities and international relations, this volume presents a rich variety of case studies and scholarly perspectives on the interplay of diverse cultures in the Americas since the European conquest. Subjects covered include documentary and archaeological evidence of cultural interaction, the collection of native artifacts and the role of museums in the interpretation of indigenous traditions, the cultural impact of Christian missions and the representation of indigenous cultures in writings addressed to European readers, the development of Latin American artistic traditions and the incorporation of motifs from European classical antiquity into modern popular culture, the contribution of Afro-descendants to the cultural mix of Latin America and the erasure of the Hispanic heritage from cultural perceptions of California since the nineteenth century. By offering accessible and well-illustrated accounts of a wide range of particular cases, the volume aims to stimulate thinking about historical and methodological issues, which can be exploited in a teaching context as well as in the furtherance of research projects in a comparative and transnational framework.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. Speculations. 1. Putting Tierra del Fuego on the Map 2. Sir Balthazar Gerbier’s Utopian Dreams of the New World, 1649–1660 3. The Impossible Dialogue between Plato and Epicurus: José Manuel Peramás's Commentarius on the Paraguayan Missions Constructions 4. Translating Franciscan Poverty in Colonial Latin America 5. Italian Scientists in South America: Argentina as Constructed by Paolo Mantegazza and Pellegrino Strobel 6. Imagined Indigeneity in Alfred Döblin’s Novel Amazonas (1937–1938) 7. Challenging Colonial Discourses: the Spanish Imperial Borderland in Chile from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century. Records of Appropriation 8. Native Artists and the Defense of Territory in Sixteenth-Century New Spain 9. A Thing of the Past: Representation, Material Culture, and Indigeneity in Post-Conquest Meso- and Andean South America 10. The Nationalization of the Ecuadorian Amazon Region in the Early Twentieth Century: The Salesian Outpost Adaptations and Conflations 11. Aristotelian Politics among the Aztecs: A Nahuatl Adaptation of a Treatise by Denys the Carthusian 12. The Poetics of Emulation in a Latin American Context: Towards a New Theoretical Framework 13. The Greco-Roman as an Arena for Conflict: Classical Reception, Popular Poetry and Power in Northeast Brazil 14. The ‘Indians of Europe’ in Sierra Morena: Reputation, Emulation and Colonization in the Spanish Enlightenment Buried Histories 15. Form and Decorations on Qeros and Unku: The Impact of Inka and Spanish Conquest on Material Culture in Settler Colonial States 16. Black Space Production in Andean Societies: How Africans and Their Descendants Shaped Lima’s San Lázaro Neighborhood 17. Fashioning the ‘Other:’ The Foreign as Diplomatic Currency in the Sixteenth-Century Caribbean and in Europe 18. Imagining the Hispanic Past: The De-Mexicanization of California, 1880–1930. Legacies of Coloniality. 19. The Lure of the Andes: Peruvian Mountain Guides ‘Made in Switzerland’ 20. The Conquest in Cultural Memory: Peruvian Migrants in Europe 21. Our Grandmother's Looms: Q’eqchi’ Weavers, Museum Textiles and the Repatriation of Lost Knowledge 22. Afro-Mexico: Images of the Indeterminate