Festivals and Daily Life in the Arts of Colonial Latin America, 1492–1850: Papers from the 2012 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum

The eight papers in this volume are a welcome addition to the growing literature on festivals, domestic life, and material culture in colonial Latin America. Several of the papers are primarily descriptive, though thoroughly researched. The foreword does not provide much of an interpretive framework for the selection of papers, which are simply divided into two groups: the first dealing with festivals and the second with daily life. It is, however, possible to divide the papers into two groups based on the types of sources the scholars consult and privilege, and the sorts of discourses they identify. The first group identifies the hegemonic narratives expressed by Spanish governors and culture makers in the New World. The second group of papers, likely of more interest to the readers of this journal, delves into more complicated territory and searches for the subaltern and hybrid narratives embedded in colonial and national discourses and...