Kathryn Burns

Research Interests

Kathryn Burns works on colonial Latin America, especially the history of mestizaje, property, and literacy in the colonial Andes. Her book Colonial Habits (Duke, 1999) examined nuns, production & reproduction in Cuzco, Peru. Into the Archive (Duke, 2010) traces the practices of the Spanish American escribanos who shaped notarial truth and generated vast colonial archives.

Burns’s recent publications include “Unfixing Race,” in Rereading the Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference in the Renaissance Empires, eds. Margaret R. Greer, Walter D. Mignolo, and Maureen Quilligan (University of Chicago, 2007), 188-202; “Dentro de la ciudad letrada: La producción de la escritura pública en el Perú colonial,” Histórica [Lima, Peru] 29:1 (July 2005), 43-68, and “Notaries, Truth, and Consequences,” American Historical Review 110:2 (April 2005), 350-79.

Graduate Students Advised by Kathryn Burns

• Jeff Erbig
• Rachel Hynson

Courses Offered (as schedules allow)

For current course listings, consult the Directory of Classes.

• HIST 142  Latin America Under Colonial Rule
• HIST 143  Latin America Since Independence
• HIST 280 (WMST 80)  Women and Gender in Latin American History
• HIST 397  The History of Race in Latin America
• HIST 713  Introductory Colloquium in Latin American History Before 1810
• HIST 721  Readings in European Expansion and Global Interaction, 1400–1800
• HIST 820  Gender and Power in Colonial Latin America