Participant Info

First Name
Susan
Last Name
Deans-Smith
Country
United States
State
TX
Affiliation
University of Texas at Austin
Website URL
https://susandeans-smith.com
Keywords
colonial Mexican visual culture and art, history of collections, colonial Mexican and Andean history
Availability
1
Additional Contact Information
PhD
PhD

Personal Info

Photo
About Me

I received my BA from the University of Warwick in Comparative American Studies, and M.Phil and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in Latin American History (Newnham College; Research Fellow, St Edmund’s College). My research and teaching interests include the history of the Spanish Empire, with a particular emphasis on Mexico and the Andean region, the visual and material culture of colonial Latin America, the history of artisans and artists in the Spanish Empire, and the history of art markets and collecting. As of August 2023, I am now an emeritus professor with a very active research agenda.

I have served on the editorial boards of the American Historical Review, the Hispanic American Historical Review, and the Colonial Latin American Review. I currently serves on the advisory board of the Colonial Latin American Review. I have received long-term fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1988-89; 2000-01) and the Social Science Research Council/ACLS (1995-96). I served as Associate Director of the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (1993-95) and as Associate Chair of the department of History (1998-2000; 2016-2020).

I am completing two monographs: Hidden in Plain Sight: A Mexican Baroque Enigma Revealed (co-author with Dr John W. Smith) and Matters of Taste: Cultural Reform in Bourbon Mexico and the Royal Academy of San Carlos (1781-1821). For additional information see my CV and website https://susandeans-smith.com 

Recent Publications

Co-edited with Miruna Achim and Sandra Rozental is Museum Matters: Making and Unmaking Mexico’s National Collections (University of Arizona Press, 2021): https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/museum-matters  and https://notevenpast.org/ihs-book-roundtable-what-belongs-in-mexicos-national-museum-two-centuries-of-object-collecting-display-and-dispersal/ The Spanish translation: Objetos en tránsito, objetos en disputa. Las colecciones del Museo Nacional de México (México: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Unidad Cuajimalpa, 2023).

Previous publications include Bureaucrats, Planters, and Workers – The Making of the Tobacco Monopoly in Bourbon Mexico (1992; 2010; Spanish translation 2014); Mexican Soundings: Essays In Honour of David A. Brading (2007) co-edited with Eric Van Young; and Race and Classification. The Case of Mexican America (2009) co-edited with Ilona Katzew. My articles and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including The Routledge Companion to the Hispanic Enlightenment (2019) Buen Gusto and Classicism in Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Latin America (2013), Anuario de Estudios Americanos, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Colonial Latin American Review, Hispanic American Historical Review, and the Latin American Research Review.

Media Coverage
Country Focus
Mexico, Peru, Spain
Expertise by Geography
Central America, Latin America, Spain
Expertise by Chronology
17th century, 18th century, Early Modern
Expertise by Topic
Art & Architectural History, Economic History, Material Culture, Museums, Race