Modern Inquisitions: Peru and the Colonial Origins of the Civilized World

Modern Inquisitions explores the cultural work of colonialism in the seventeenth century Peruvian Andes and attempts to address some of the complex, cultural practices that accompanied the institutionalization of state power in Europe and the colonial New World. A primary source of my investigation has been records from the Lima headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition. These documents show us the Inquisition’s modern side: it was Europe’s most advanced bureaucracy at the time and it helped instantiate the racialized categories of colonial rule that girded modern state-making.

Duke Scholars

Author Irene Silverblatt Cultural Anthropology