Irene Silverblatt | Scholars@Duke

Irene Silverblatt
Professor Emerita of Cultural Anthropology

Irene Silverblatt researches the cultural dimensions of power. She studies how “race-thinking” and gender relations were integral to the making of the modern world as well as how historical memory has shaped feelings of national belonging and demands for universal rights. These interests are both historical and contemporary, and have taken Silverblatt to the Inca Empire, the colonial Andes and contemporary Central/Eastern Europe. Her goal has been to explore the profound transformations in social identities, political sensibilities, and categories of “humanness” spawned by the “modern/civilized” world. With support from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim and Wenner Gren Foundations and Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, she has explored the Spanish Inquisition as a modern institution as well as the ways that gender construed power relations in Inca and Colonial Peru. These concerns about the cultural expressions of power, combined with an interest in the politics of memory and its relation to art, orient her next project. Research in central and eastern Europe explores the ways in which historical memory, particularly of the holocaust, is playing a role in the transformation of national ideologies as well as in the conceptualization of transnational, human rights. Her initial foray into this new arena was to edit Harvest of Blossoms: Poetry of a Life Cut Short. (with Helene Silverblatt). This volume is a collection of the poetry of our cousin, Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, who died in an SS labor camp in 1942.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor Emerita of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2019

Contact Information

Box 90091, Durham, NC 27708-0091
500 W 111th St, Apt 2B, New York, NY 10025
irene.silverblatt@duke.edu (919) 641-0319

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1981
Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2004 - 2019
- Professor of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2013 - 2019
- Professor in Women's Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2009 - 2014
- Professor of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2006 - 2008
- Professor in Women's Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2005 - 2008
- Associate Professor of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2000 - 2005
- Associate Professor with Tenure, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1992 - 2004
Recognition
Awards & Honors
Expertise
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - Spain (Country)
- Research
  - Peru (Country)
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Meerbaum-Eisinger, S. Harvest of Blossoms: Poems from a Life Cut Short (Collected Poems of Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger). Edited by I. Silverblatt and H. Silverblatt. Translated by J. Glenn, F. Birkmeyer, H. Silverblatt, and I. Silverblatt. Northwestern University Press, 2008.
  - Silverblatt, I. Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
  - Silverblatt, I. Japanes translation of Moon, Sun, and Witches. Tokyo, Japan: Iwanami Shoten Publisher, 2001.
  - Silverblatt, I. Spanish translation of Moon, Sun, and Witches. Lima, Peru: Centro-Las Casas, 1990.
  - Silverblatt, I. Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
- Academic Articles
  - Silverblatt, I. “Stained Blood in the Old World and the New: New Christians and the Racial Categories of the Colonial-Modern World.” Edited by A. E. Glauz-Todrank. Critical Research on Religion 2 (2014).
  - Silverblatt, I. “Confronting Nationalisms, Cosmopolitan Visions, and the Politics of Memory: Aesthetics of Reconciliation and Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger in Western Ukraine (Accepted).” Dissidences 4, no. 8 (2012).
  - Silverblatt, I. “Heresies and colonial geopolitics.” Romanic Review 103, no. 1–2 (January 1, 2012): 65–80.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Chasteté et pureté des liens sociaux dans le Pérou du XVII^e siècle.” Cahiers Du Genre 50, no. 1 (December 1, 2011): 17–40. https://doi.org/10.3917/cdge.050.0017.
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  - Silverblatt, Irene. “Colonial Peru and the Inquisition: Race-Thinking, Torture, and the Making of the Modern World.” Transforming Anthropology 19, no. 2 (October 2011): 132–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-7466.2011.01127.x.
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  - Silverblatt, I. “Colonial conspiracies.” Ethnohistory 53, no. 2 (March 1, 2006): 259–80. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-53-2-259.
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  - Silverblatt, I. “New Christians and new world fears in seventeenth-century Peru.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 42, no. 3 (January 1, 2000): 524–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500002929.
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  - Silverblatt, I. “The secret history of gender: Women, men, and power in late Colonial Mexico.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 41, no. 2 (April 1, 1999): 406–406.
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  - Silverblatt, I. “Honor, Sex, and Civilizing in the Making of Seventeenth Century Peru.” Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society 25, no. 1&2 (1997): 181–98.
  - Silverblatt, Irene. “Lessons of Gender and Ethnohistory in Mesoamerica.” Ethnohistory 42, no. 4 (1995): 639–639. https://doi.org/10.2307/483149.
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  - Silverblatt, I. “Women in States.” Annual Review of Anthropology 17, no. 1 (October 1988): 427–60. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.17.100188.002235.
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  - Silverblatt, I. “Imperial Dilemmas, the Politics of Kinship, and Inca Reconstructions of History.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30, no. 1 (January 1, 1988): 83–102. https://doi.org/10.1017/S001041750001505X.
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  - Silverblatt, I. “The evolution of witchcraft and the meaning of healing in colonial Andean society.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 7, no. 4 (December 1983): 413–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00052240.
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- Book Sections
  - Silverblatt, I. “Acllacuna.” In Encyclopedia of the Incas, edited by G. Urton and A. von Hagen. Lanhan (MD), Boulder, New York, London: Rowan and Littlefield, 2015.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Women.” In Encyclopedia of the Incas, edited by G. Urton and A. V. Hagen. Lanhan (MD), Boulder, New York, London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Haunting the Modern Andean State: Colonial Legacies of Race and Civilization.” In Off-Centered States: Political Formation and Deformation in the Andes, edited by C. Krupa and D. Nugent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Prologo.” In No Se Puede Descolonizar Sin Despatriarcalizar: Teoria y Propuesta de La Despatriarcalizacion, by Maria Galindo. Mujeres Creando, 2013.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Forward.” In Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America, edited by M. O. Hara and A. Fisher. Duke University Press, 2009.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Native Andeans Observe Spanish Colonials.” In Europe Observed, edited by Clement Hawes and KumKum Chaterjee. Bucknell University Press, 2008.
  - Silverblatt, I. “The Black Legend and Global Conspiracies: The Spanish Inquisition, Race-Thinking and the Emerging Modern World.” In Rereading the Black Legend, edited by M. Greer and W. Mignolo. University of Chicago Press, 2008.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Modern Inquisitions.” In Empires: Thinking Colonial Studies Beyond Europe, edited by A. Stoler and C. McGranahan, 295–331. School of American Research, 2007.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Religion and Race in the Emerging Modern World: Indians, Incas, and Conspiracy Stories in Colonial Peru.” In Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body, and Contestation in Catholic Faith, edited by B. Morrill, J. Ziegler, and S. Rodgers. Palgrave/MacMillan, 2006.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Religion and Race in the Emerging Modern World: Indians, Incas, and Conspiracy Stories in Colonial Peru.” In Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body, and Contestation in Catholic Faith, edited by B. T. Morrill, J. Ziegler, and S. Rodgers. Palgrave/MacMillian, 2006.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Political Disenfranchisement.” In Latin American Cultural Studies Reader, edited by A. del Sarto, A. Rios, and A. Trigo. Duke University Press, 2004.
  - Silverblatt, I. “New World Christians and New World Fears in Colonial Peru.” In From the Margins: Historical Anthropology and Its Futures, edited by B. K. Axel. Duke University Press, 2002.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Power and Memory in Latin America: The Uses of the Pre-Columbian Past.” In Archaeology and Society in the 21st Century: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Case Studies, edited by N. A. Silberman and E. S. Frerichs, 21–32. Jerusalem: The Dorot Foundation, 2001.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Definiciones de la Modernidad y Inquisiciones Modernas.” In Reestructuracion de Las Ciencias Sociales En Los Paises Andinos, edited by S. Gomez. Bogota: Instituto Pensar, 2001.
  - Silverblatt, I. “The Inca’s Witches: Gender and the Cultural Work of Colonization in Seventeenth Century Peru.” In Possible Pasts: Becoming Colonial in Early America, edited by R. St. George, 109–30. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Becoming Indian in the Central Andes of Seventeenth Century Peru.” In Imperial Aftermaths and Postcolonial Displacements, edited by G. Prakash, 279–98. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Andean Witches and Virgins: Seventeenth Century Nativism and Subversive Gender Ideologies.” In Women, Race and Writing in the Early Modern Period, edited by M. Hendricks and P. Parker, 259–71. London: Routledge, 1994.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Cristianos nuevos y miedos a proposito del Nuevo Mundo en el Peru del siglo xvii (Accepted).” In Auto de La Fe Celebrado En Lima a 23 Enero de 1639, Al Tribunal Del Santo Oficio de La Inquisicion by Fernando de Montesinos. Madrid, Spain: Iberoamericana editorial Vervuert, n.d.
  - Silverblatt, I. “Family Values in Seventeenth-Century Peru (Accepted).” In Envisioning Women in Latin America History, edited by C. Nava, n.d.
- Other Articles
  - Silverblatt, I. “Threads Speak.” Eccentric Archive, 2012.
- Book Reviews
  - Silverblatt, I. “Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru. By Kathryn Burns (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010. xv plus 247 pp.).” Journal of Social History. Oxford University Press (OUP), December 1, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/shs049.
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  - Silverblatt, Irene, Ana Sanchez, and Sabine MacCormack. “Amancebados, hechiceros, y rebeldes. Chancay, siglo XVII.” The Hispanic American Historical Review. JSTOR, February 1993. https://doi.org/10.2307/2517659.
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  - SILVERBLATT, I. R. E. N. E. “Anthropological History of Andean Polities. JOHN V. MURRA, NATHAN WACHTEL, and JACQUES REVEL, eds.” American Ethnologist. Wiley, May 1989. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1989.16.2.02a00280.
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  - SILVERBLATT, I. R. E. N. E. “Native lords of Quito in the age of the incas: The political economy of north Andean chiefdoms. FRANK SALOMON.” American Ethnologist. Wiley, August 1988. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1988.15.3.02a00260.
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- Book Series
  - Silverblatt, I., W. Mignolo, and S. Saldivar-Hull, eds. “Latin America Otherwise.” Duke University Press, n.d.
- Conference Papers
  - Glauz-Todrank, A. E., J. Boyarin, I. Silverblatt, J. Geller, A. Gross, S. Imhoff, and S. Sippy. “Jewish identification and critical theory: The political significance of conceptual categories.” In Critical Research on Religion, 2:165–94, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1177/2050303214535009.
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Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
- CULANTH 793: Individual Research in Cultural Anthropology 2022
- CULANTH 793: Individual Research in Cultural Anthropology 2021
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
Outreach & Engaged Scholarship
- Bass Connections Faculty Team Member. The Construction of Memory at Duke and in Durham: Using Memory Studies. August 2016 - May 2017 2016 - 2017

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Previous Appointments & Affiliations

Awards & Honors

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Research

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Other Articles

Book Reviews

Book Series

Conference Papers

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances

Outreach & Engaged Scholarship