Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

English Literature

Summary of research interests and expertise:

- Transmission and stabilisation of historical narratives in the Andes under Incan and Spanish rule.
- Early Modern constructions of ancient Peru in European fiction and artefact collections.

My research project at the SAS proposes a comparative analysis of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English and French fiction on the Inca Empire. Throughout this period, which coincided with the decline of Spanish hegemony in the Americas and with England’s and France’s imperial impulses, ancient Peru became a remarkably popular theme in a variety of novels, plays, operas, poems and periodical essays. My project investigates the relationship between this literature and the mercantile aspirations, scientific endeavours and imperialist designs of two countries far removed from actual dominion over Peru. It explores de facto intellectual exchanges between France and England in order to establish a clearer understanding of the mobility and endurance of the Noble Inca figure, and to shed a better light on the interactions between academic and public cultures.

In parallel, I coordinate a research group with Pierre Déléage (Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale) and Bérénice Gaillemin (Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et Sociologie Comparative) on Amerindian pictographic catechisms, for which we received funding from the Institut des Sciences Sociales et Humaines (PE/PS) and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (LabEx TransferS).
 

Project summary relevant to Fellowship:

Dr Yaya's fellowship report

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
01-Jan-2012	The Two Faces of Inca History: Dualism in the Narratives and Cosmology of Ancient Cuzco. The Early Americas History and Cultures Series, Leiden: E.J. Brill
01-Jan-2011	“Napoleon as lawgiver: The renewal of an enlightened political motif for the iconographic program of the Louvre’s Cour Carrée” French History, 25(3) Articles
01-Jan-2010	“The poetics and dynamics of cultural encounter: recent perspectives on Peru’s pre-Hispanic and early colonial order” Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 16(1) Review
01-Jan-2008	Guaman Poma de Ayala, “The First New Chronicle and Good Government”, 2006 (selected, annoted, and abridged by David Frye), Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Bulletin of Latin American Research 27(2) Review
01-Jan-2008	“Wonders of America: the curiosity cabinet as a site of representation and knowledge” Journal of the History of Collections 20(2), 2008: 173-188 Articles
01-Jan-2008	“The Importance of Initiatory Ordeals: Kinship and Politics in an Inca Narrative” Ethnohistory 55(1) Articles
01-Jan-2007	Sabine Hyland, “The Jesuit and the Incas: the extraordinary life of Padre Blas Valera”, 2003. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ethnohistory 54(1) Review
	“Hanan y Hurin: historia de un sistema estructural” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Etudes Andines, forthcoming. Articles

Consultancy reports:

Date	Details
2012	with Bérénice Gaillemin, Catéchismes pictographiques: comparaison Mexique/Andes. Final report of the PE/PS project to the Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales (C.N.R.S.). 25 pages.

Relevant Events

Related events:

Date	Details
15-May-2013	“Enlightening the Khipu: Views on the Incas’ Writing System in Eighteenth-Century Learned Circles”, Dean's Seminar, University of London
19-Apr-2013	“I rise, and it is not for myself”: Visions of the Inca Empire in the English and French Press of the Eighteenth-Century”, Latin American Utopian Visions: A Critical Look for the 21st Century, CRASSH, University of Cambridge
17-Apr-2013	“The Ideal Empire: French and English constructions of the Incas in Eighteenth-Century Theatre”. The Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies Research Seminar, Room 246, Senate House

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