Empire and Everyday Life in Colonial Latin America

What was it like to live a “regular” life in the American colonies of Spain and Portugal? How did people eat, dress, have fun, start and sustain families, pursue careers, and think about the world and themselves? Drawing upon a range of sources, this course considers how global and local forces intersected in the individual or community in myriad, yet historically contingent, ways. This micro focus provides another way of considering the broad historical forces at work in the colonies, such as religion, gender, politics, race, technology, and geography, from the “inside-out” perspective of individual and communal accounts and stories.