Appreciating Guaraní Words: New Directions in Guaraní Studies


Tuesday, February 28, 2023 | 02:00 pm

Virtual

About:

In this talk, Austin will discuss underappreciated sources in the historical scholarship that shine a light on the experiences of Guaraní in the colonial Río de la Plata and Paraguay. He will discuss insights from the socio-historical records that served as the foundation for his book, Colonial Kinship, as well as the linguistic methods and Guaraní language sources of his ongoing research.

Shawn Michael Austin is Associate Professor of History at the University of Arkansas. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of New Mexico in 2014. His book, Colonial Kinship: Guaraní, Spaniards, and Africans in Paraguay (U. of New Mexico Press, 2020), received the 2021 Bandelier/Lavrin Book Prize in Colonial Latin American History from the Rocky Mountain Council of Latin American Studies and an honorable mention for the 2021 Ermine Wheeler-Voegelin Award from the American Society for Ethnohistory. He is currently working on a monograph entitled “Guaraní Means War: Indigenous Militias and The Politics of Defense in the Spanish Río de la Plata” and a translation volume of eighteenth-century Guaraní letters with Argentine linguist, Leonardo Cerno.