Participant Info
- First Name
- Allison
- Last Name
- Bigelow
- Country
- United States
- State
- allison.bigelow@nd.edu
- Affiliation
- University of Notre Dame
- Website URL
- https://romancelanguages.nd.edu/people/faculty/allison-margaret-bigelow/
- Keywords
- colonial Americas, Indigenous knowledges, history of science and technology, history of mining, history of agriculture
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
I hold a PhD in English (UNC, 2012), completed a postdoc in history (OIEAHC/W&M, 2012-2014) and now teach in a Spanish department (UVA, 2014-2025; Notre Dame, 2025-present). I use methods and theoretical frameworks from each of these fields to study vernacular sciences in the colonial Americas, especially mining and agriculture. My first book, Mining Language: Racial Thinking, Indigenous Knowledge, and Colonial Metallurgy in the Early Modern Iberian World (OIEAHC/UNC Press, 2020), shows how scholarly approaches that combine linguistic, literary, and material cultural methods allow us to document Indigenous knowledge production in ways that colonial archives have not typically permitted.
From 2021-22, I co-chaired a committee that removed UVA’s statue of revolutionary general George Rogers Clark from public view. I am working on a book about the lifecycle of the statue with three Tribal consultants from the committee, and I collaborate with community members and colleagues from UVA on the redesign of the landscape. The new park is expected to reopen in 2026-7.
- Recent Publications
“Corn/Maize.” Logomotives: Words that Change the World, 1400-1700, edited by Marjorie Rubright and Stephen Spiess (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2025), pp. 95-106.
“Incorporation and Erasure of Indigenous Knowledges in Spanish Colonial Metalwork,” Silver: Transformational Matter, ed. Helen Hill (London and Oxford: British Academy and Oxford University Press, 2023), pp. 21-38.
“Produção de conhecimento e trabalho forçado: o trabalho intelectual e os mundos dos mitayos andinos no período colonial tardio,” trans. Crislayne Gloss Marão Alfagali, Mundos do Trabalho, dossiê: “Vivendo nas minas: mineração e mundos do trabalho nos séculos XV-XVIII,” vol. 15, ed. Crislayne Gloss Marão Alfagali and Fidel Velázquez (2023): 1-21. DOI: 10.5007/1984-9222.2023.e95228.
“The Crossroads of the World: Centering Indigenous Knowledge in Colonial Iberian Histories of Mining and Metallurgy.” Relating Continents: Coloniality and Global Encounters in Romance Literary and Cultural History, ed. Romana Radlwimmer (Berlin: De Grunter, 2023), 205-224.
“Knowledge in Transition: Rethinking the Science of Sameness in Sor Juana’s New Spain.” Latin American Literature in Transition pre-1492-1800, ed. Rocio Quispe-Agnoli and Amber Brian (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 315-330.
- Media Coverage
- https://news.virginia.edu/content/faculty-spotlight-allison-bigelow-puts-others-first
- Social Media
- Country Focus
- Expertise by Geography
- Central America, Latin America, North America
- Expertise by Chronology
- Pre-17th century, 17th century, 18th century
- Expertise by Topic
- Colonialism, Gender, Indigenous Peoples, Literary History, Race, Science
