Contact Information
810 S. Wright Street
Urbana, IL 61801
Biography
Claudia Brosseder is Associate professor of colonial Latin American history at the University of Illinois. Brosseder’s research focuses on the indigenous world of colonial Peru, as well as on the intellectual history of colonial Peru in a transatlantic setting. She is particularly interested in reconstructing the colonial Andean world from the vantage point of the Andean people. Over the course of her studies Brosseder has gained expertise in two distinct areas of scholarship: the intellectual history of early modern Europe and the history of the colonial Andes.
She has authored the book: The Power of Huacas. Change and Resistance in the Andean World of colonial Peru (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014), which won the 2015 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of Historical Studies by the American Academy of Religion. Her first book Im Bann der Sterne. Caspar Peucer, Philipp Melanchthon und andere Wittenberger Astrologen (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004), is a study of the role of astrology among sixteenth century Protestants.
Research Interests
My research engages ethnohistory, archaeology, and art history (among other disciplines) to reconstruct prehistoric and early colonial Andean belief systems, ontologies, and human-animal relations. I have published books on the history of early modern astrology, Andean wak’a, and Inka relationships with birds. My most recent publication, “Inka Bird Idiom. Amazonian Feathers in the Andes” (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023) deciphers the powerful Andean symbolic idiom of feathers.
Education
Ph.D.: Munich University, Habilitation: Munich University
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, History
Associate Professor, Program in Medieval Studies
Associate Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Highlighted Publications
Brosseder, C. R. (2023). Inka Bird Idiom: Amazonian Feathers in the Andes. (Pitt Latin American Series). University of Pittsburgh Press.
Brosseder, C. (2014). The Power of Huacas: Change and Resistance in the Andean World of Colonial Peru. University of Texas Press. https://doi.org/10.7560/756946
Brosseder, C. R. (2018). El Poder de la Huacas: Cambios y resistencia en los andes del Perú colonial. Ediciones El Lector.
Brosseder, C. (2004). Im Bann der Sterne: Caspar Peucer, Philipp Melanchthon und andere Wittenberger Astrologen. Akademie Verlag GMBH. https://doi.org/10.1524/9783050082172
Recent Publications
Brosseder, C. R. (2023). Inka Bird Idiom: Amazonian Feathers in the Andes. (Pitt Latin American Series). University of Pittsburgh Press.
Brosseder, C. R. (2019). Unsettling and Unsettled Readings: Occult Scripts in 16th-Century Lima and the Challenges of Andean Knowledge. In E. A. Engel (Ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Lima (pp. 275-309). (Brill's Companions to the Americas; Vol. 2). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004335363_014
Brosseder, C. R. (2018). El Poder de la Huacas: Cambios y resistencia en los andes del Perú colonial. Ediciones El Lector.
Brosseder, C. (2018). Secularizing the Andes: The Effects of Transcultural Processes on Colonial Andean Rituals. In I. G. Županov, & P. A. Fabre (Eds.), The Rites Controversies in the Early Modern World (pp. 301-321). (Studies in Christian Mission; Vol. 53). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004366299_013
Brosseder, C. (2018). The conquest of the Andes from Andean perspectives. In The Andean World (pp. 161-174). Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315621715