Peter Sigal | Scholars@Duke

Peter Sigal
Professor of History

The relationships between gender, sexuality, and colonialism have intrigued me since I began my first book on Maya sexuality. I recently completed a study on the interaction of writing and sexual representation in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Nahua societies--The Flower and the Scorpion: Sexuality and Ritual in Early Nahua Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011); I am currently co-editing with Neil Whitehead a volume on “ethnopornography,” the relationship between the colonial and ethnographic gaze and sexuality throughout the world; and engaging in research on the position of the hyper-masculinized Aztec warrior in early modern literature from Europe and the Americas. I have moved from studying sexual desires in indigenous communities to examining the early modern cultural processes that created global concepts of modern sexuality, gender, masculinity, and femininity.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2013
Professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2014

Contact Information

234 Classroom Building, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90719, Durham, NC 27708-0719
peter.sigal@duke.edu (919) 684-3014

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., University of California - Los Angeles 1995
- M.A., University of California - Los Angeles 1992
- B.A., Bucknell University 1986
Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Director of Graduate Studies in the Program in Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2021
- Associate Professor of History, History, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2006 - 2013
- Associate Professor in Women's Studies, Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2006 - 2009
Recognition
Awards & Honors
- Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Book Award. American Society for Ethnohistory. November 2012
- Fellow. National Humanities Center. 2004
Expertise
Subject Headings
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - Mexico (Country)
- Research
  - Mexico (Country)
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Sigal, P. The flower and the scorpion: Sexuality and ritual in early nahua culture, 2011.
  - Sigal, P. H., Neil Whitehead, Erika Robb Larkins, and Zeb Tortorici. Ethnopornography. University Press of Colorado, 2010.
  - Sigal, P. H., and James N. Green. Re-Gendering Latin America. Vol. 16, 2005.
  - Sigal, P. Infamous Desire: Male Homosexuality in Colonial Latin America. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
  - Sigal, P. From Moon Goddesses to Virgins: The Colonization of Yucatecan Maya Sexual Desire. University of Texas Press, 2000.
- Academic Articles
  - Sigal, P. “Making maya men fantasy, voyeurism, and perverted penetration.” Glq 26, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-7929083.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P. “In this issue.” Hahr Hispanic American Historical Review 96, no. 3 (August 1, 2016): 415–19. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-3601526.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, Pete, Matthew Restall, Stephanie Wood, and Caterina Pizzigoni. “James Lockhart (1933–2014).” Hispanic American Historical Review 95, no. 2 (May 1, 2015): 335–39. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-2874647.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, Pete. “Neil L. Whitehead (1956–2012).” Ethnohistory 59, no. 3 (July 1, 2012): 631–33. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-1708579.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P. “Imagining Cihuacoatl: Masculine Rituals, Nahua Goddesses and the Texts of the Tlacuilos.” Gender and History 22, no. 3 (November 1, 2010): 538–63. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2010.01610.x.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P. “Imagining Cihuacoatl: Mexica Masculinity and Spanish Colonization.” Gender & History 22 (November 2010): 538–63.
  - Sigal, Pete. “Latin America and the challenge of globalizing the history of sexuality.” The American Historical Review 114, no. 5 (December 2009): 1340–53. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.114.5.1340.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P. “Review of The Memory of Bones: Body, Being, and Experience among the Classic Maya. By Stephen Houston, David Stuart, and Karl Taube (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006).” Hispanic American Historical Review 88 (May 2008).
  - Sigal, Pete. “The Memory of Bones: Body, Being, and Experience among the Classic Maya.” Hispanic American Historical Review 88, no. 2 (May 1, 2008): 302–3. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-2007-130.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P. “Queer Nahuatl: Sahagún's faggots and sodomites, lesbians and hermaphrodites.” Ethnohistory 54, no. 1 (December 1, 2007): 9–34. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-2006-038.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P., and J. F. Chuchiak IV. “Ethnohistory: Guest Editors' Introduction.” Ethnohistory 54, no. 1 (December 1, 2007): 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1215/00141801-2006-037.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P. “Review of The Origins of Mexican Catholicism: Nahua Rituals and Christian Sacraments in Sixteenth-Century Mexico. By Osvaldo F. Pardo (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004).” Colonial Latin American Review 16 (June 2007).
  - Sigal, P. “Sexual Encounters/Sexual Collisions: Alternative Sexualities in Colonial Mesoamerica.” Edited by Pete Sigal and John Chuchiak. Ethnohistory 54 (January 2007).
  - Sigal, Pete. “The Origins of Mexican Catholicism: Nahua Rituals and Christian Sacraments in Sixteenth-Century Mexico.” Colonial Latin American Review 16, no. 1 (2007): 127–29.
    Link to Item
  - Sigal, P. “Review of False Mystics: Deviant Orthodoxy in Colonial Mexico. by Nora E. Jaffary (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2004).” American Historical Review 111 (February 2006).
  - Sigal, P. “NORA E. JAFFARY. False Mystics: Deviant Orthodoxy in Colonial Mexico. (Engendering Latin America.) Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2004. Pp. xvi, 257. $49.95.” The American Historical Review 111, no. 1 (February 1, 2006): 239–40. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.111.1.239.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, Pete. “The Cuiloni, the Patlache, and the Abominable Sin: Homosexualities in Early Colonial Nahua Society.” Hispanic American Historical Review 85, no. 4 (November 1, 2005): 555–93. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-85-4-555.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P. “Review of The Famous 41: Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico, c. 1901. by Robert McKee Irwin, Eward J. McCaughan, and Michaelle Rocio Nasser, eds. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).” American Historical Review 109 (2004).
  - Sigal, P. “Review of Gender and Sexuality in Latin America, special issue of Hispanic American Historical Review.” Estudios Interdisciplinarios De America Latina Y El Caribe 14 (2003).
  - Sigal, P. “Gender, male homosexuality, and power in colonial Yucatán.” Latin American Perspectives 29, no. 2 (January 1, 2002): 24–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X0202900202.
    Full Text Open Access Copy
  - Sigal, P. “To Cross the Sexual Borderlands: The History of Sexuality in the Americas.” Radical History Review 82 (2002): 171–85.
    Open Access Copy
  - Sigal, P. “Mexico’s Indigenous Past. by Alfredo López austin and Leonardo Lópex Lugan. Trans. Bernard R. Ortiz de Montellano (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001).” H Latinam, 2002.
  - Sigal, P. “Review of Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil. by James N. Green (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999).” Journal of Homosexuality 42 (2002).
  - Sigal, P. “Review of The Emperor’s Mirror: Understanding Cultures through Primary Sources. by Russell J. Barber and Frances F. Berdan (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1998).” Ethnohistory 48 (2001).
  - Sigal, P. “Review of Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice. by Merry E. Weisner-Hanks (New York: Routledge, 2000).” American Historical Review 106 (2001).
  - Sigal, P. “Ethnohistory and Homosexual Desire: A Review of Recent Works.” Ethnohistory 45 (1998): 135–41.
  - Sigal, P. “The politicization of pederasty among the colonial Yucatecan Maya.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 8, no. 1 (1997): 1–24.
    Link to Item
  - Restall, Matthew, and Pete Sigal. “’May They Not Be Fornicators Equal to These Priests’: Postconquest Yucatec Maya Sexual Attitudes.” Ucla Historical Journal 12 (1992): 91–121.
- Book Sections
  - Sigal, P. “Queer Náhuatl: Sahagún’s Faggots and Sodomites, Lesbians and Hermaphrodites.” In Indigenous Religions, 321–46, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315252407-25.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, Pete. “Unnatural Sex? Epilogue.” In SEXUALITY AND THE UNNATURAL IN COLONIAL LATIN AMERICA, 213–24, 2016.
    Link to Item
  - Sigal, P. “Sodomy.” In Lexikon of the Hispanic Baroque: Transatlantic Exchange and Transformation. University of Texas Press, 2013.
  - Sigal, P. “Imagining Cihuacoatl: Masculine Rituals, Nahua Goddesses and the Texts of the Tlacuilos.” In Historicising Gender and Sexuality, 12–37, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444343953.ch1.
    Full Text
  - Sigal, P. “Colonial Reflections/Magical Imaginations: Pedro Lasch’s Tezcatlipoca.” In Black Mirror/Espejo Negro, edited by Pedro Lasch, 2010.
  - Sigal, P. “The Perfumed Man: Sacrifice, Penetration, and the Feminization of the Male Body in Sixteenth-Century Mesoamerica.” In Power, Gender, and Ritual in Europe and the Americas: Essays in Memory of Richard C. Trexler, edited by Peter Arnade and Michael Rocke, 299–316. Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, University of Toronto, 2008.
  - Sigal, P. “Sexuality in Maya and Nahuatl Sources.” In Sources And Methods for the Study of Postconquest Mesoamerican Ethnohistory, edited by James Lockhart, Lisa Sousa, and Stephanie Wood, 2007.
  - Sigal, P. “(Homo)Sexual Desire and Masculine Power in Colonial Latin America: Notes Toward an Integrated Analysis.” In Infamous Desire: Male Homosexuality in Colonial Latin America, edited by Pete Sigal. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
  - Sigal, P. “Gendered Power, the Hybrid Self, and Homosexual Desire in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Yucatan.” In Infamous Desire: Male Homosexuality in Colonial Latin America, edited by Pete Sigal. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
- ETHICS 89S: Special Topic: First-Year Seminar in Ethics 2023
- GSF 89S: First-Year Seminar in Gender Studies 2023
- GSF 501S: History of Sexuality 2023
- HISTORY 89S: First-Year Seminar 2023
- HISTORY 112: Sexual Pleasure in the Modern World 2023
- HISTORY 370: Aztecs and Mayans 2023
- HISTORY 501S: History of Sexuality 2023
- HISTORY 792: Reading Topics-Independent Study 2023
- HOUSECS 59: House Course 2023
- MEDREN 270: Aztecs and Mayans 2023
- SXL 89S: First Year Seminar 2023
- SXL 116: Sexual Pleasure in the Modern World 2023
- ETHICS 89S: Special Topic: First-Year Seminar in Ethics 2022
- GSF 89S: First-Year Seminar in Gender Studies 2022
- HISTORY 89S: First-Year Seminar 2022
- HISTORY 370: Aztecs and Mayans 2022
- HISTORY 791: Reading Topics: Independent Study 2022
- HOUSECS 59: House Course 2022
- SXL 89S: First Year Seminar 2022
- GSF 501S: History of Sexuality 2021
- GSF 960S: Interdisciplinary Debates (Topics) 2021
- HISTORY 112: Sexual Pleasure in the Modern World 2021
- HISTORY 370: Aztecs and Mayans 2021
- HISTORY 394: Research Independent Study 2021
- HISTORY 501S: History of Sexuality 2021
- HISTORY 792: Reading Topics-Independent Study 2021
- HOUSECS 59: House Course 2021
- SXL 116: Sexual Pleasure in the Modern World 2021
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
Service to the Profession
- Senior Editor : Hispanic American Historical Review. 2012 - 2017 2012 - 2017

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Previous Appointments & Affiliations

Awards & Honors

Subject Headings

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Research

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances

Service to the Profession