The Bartolomé de Las Casas Conference: Oct. 7-8, 2016

Bartolomé de Las Casas: History, Philosophy, & Theology in the Age of European Expansion

Schedule for Conference

Friday, Oct. 7

Registration: Coffee and refreshments available
9 – 9:30 a.m.

Convocation
9:30 – 9:45 a.m. 

First Session
10 – 11:30 a.m. 

Panel 1: Las Casas and Political Theology (Chair: David Lantigua, University of Notre Dame)

• Daniel Brunstetter, University of California Irvine, “Las Casas and the Just War Tradition”
• Víctor Zorrilla, Universidad de Monterrey, “Jurisdiction in Stand-by: The Spanish Kings’ Juridical Status in the Indies and its Moral and Political Implications in Las Casas’s De thesauris”
• Damian Costello, Independent Scholar, “Honor and Caritas: Reframing Las Casas Within the Conquest”

Lunch
11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. 

Second Session
1:15 – 3:15 p.m. 

Panel 2: Genealogies of Race and Empire: Contesting the Geopolitics of Las Casas (Chair: Edgar Mejia, Providence College)

• Ángel J. Gallardo, Southern Methodist University, “Mapping the New World: The Contested Nature of Place in Las Casas’s Theological Geography”
• David Lantigua, Catholic University of America, “Chastening Empire: Bishop Las Casas and the Body Politics of Christ”
• David Orique, O.P., Providence College, “To Heaven or to Hell: Bartolomé de Las Casas’s Confessionary Roadmap to Temporal Justice and to Eternal Life” (English translation and commentary of Las Casas’s Confesionario)

Panel 3: Las Casas and Slavery (Chair: Mónica Simal, Providence College)

• Armando Lampe, Revista Mexicana del Caribe, Universidad de Quintana Roo, Mexico, “Las Casas y la esclavitud en el Caribe”
• Guillaume Candela, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, “¿Martín González, discípulo o imitador? Influencias del discurso lascasiano en la Provincia del Paraguay (siglo XVI)”

Third Session
3:45 – 5:15 p.m. 

Panel 4: Las Casas and the Dominican Tradition (Chair: David Orique, O.P., Providence College)

• Daniel J.M. Cheely, University of Pennsylvania, and Daniel I. Wasserman-Soler, Alma College, “The Expansion of Dominican Spirituality: Luis de Granada’s Libro de la oración y meditación”
• Eyda M. Merediz, University of Maryland, College Park, “Las Casas in the Canary Islands”
• Camilla Boisen, University of the Witwatersrand, “The Legacy of the Valladolid Conference in Colonial Political Thought”

Plenary I
6 – 7 p.m. 

John Carter Brown Library, Brown University
94 George St, Providence, RI 02906

“The Not-So-Brief Story of the Brevisima relación”  Speaker: Rolena Adorno, Yale University

Saturday, Oct. 8

Fourth Session
8:30 – 10 a.m. 

Panel 5: Religious History of New Spain (Chair: Rady Roldán-Figueroa, Boston University)

• Jorge Abril Sánchez, University of New Hampshire-Durham, “The Franciscans and the Devilish Indians of the New World: Palimpsestic Demonology in Fray Andrés de Olmos’s Tratado de hechicerías y sortilegios (1553)”
• Laura Dierksmeier, Universität Tübingen, “Confraternities: Social Assistance in 16th Century Mexico”

Panel 6: The Intellectual Appropriation of Las Casas (Chair: Adrian Weimer, Providence College)

• Alicia Mayer, UNAM, Centro de Estudios Mexicanos, “A Controversial Case of Humanitarian Doctrine: New England Puritans Contestation to Las Casas and Sepúlveda (17th Century)”
• José Cárdenas Bunsen, Vanderbilt University, “The Social and Textual Implications of Reading Las Casas: The Case of Garcilaso Inca”
• Toon Ooms, Université Catholique de Louvain and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, “Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Precursor of Liberation Theology? Gustavo Gutiérrez’s Reading of Las Casas’s Theology of Salvation.”

Fifth Session
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 noon 

Panel 7: Las Casas: Ethics, History, and Narration (Chair: Rady Roldán-Figueroa, Boston University)

• Claus Dierksmeier, Weltethos-Institut, University of Tübingen, “Globalization Ethics in the 16th Century? Why We Should Re-Read Francisco de Vitoria”
• Ricardo Monsalve, Colgate University, “Lo demoníaco en la Apologetica Historia Sumaria de Bartolomé de las Casas”
• Lawrence A. Clayton, University of Alabama, and David M. Lantigua, University of Notre Dame, “Bartolomé de las Casas: A Documentary History”

Lunch
12:00 noon – 1:45 p.m.

Sixth Session
2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Panel 8: Las Casas’s Missiology (Chair: Lawrence A. Clayton, University of Alabama)

• Song No, Purdue University, “Complexity and Contradiction in Bartolomé de Las Casas’s De Unico Vocationis Modo”
• Rady Roldán-Figueroa, Boston University, “The Episcopal Office and the Defense of Humanity: Bartolomé de las Casas’s Theory of the Power of the Bishops”

Panel 9: Religious Others in the Time of Las Casas (Chair: Noemi Martin Santo, Providence College)

• Alexandria Castillo, University of Houston, “The Politics of Religious Exclusion: Protestants and the Catholic Church in Colonial Mexico
• James Maffie, University of Maryland, College Park, “Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy in the New World Religious Encounter: The Case of Sahagun’s Colloquois y doctrina cristiana”

Seventh Session
4:00 – 5:30 p.m.

Panel 10.  Biopolitics, Ethics, Ecological Justice and the Human Condition (Chair: José Cárdenas Bunsen, Vanderbilt University)

• Luis Fernando Restrepo, University of Arkansas, “Colonial Face to Face and the Human Condition”
• Santa Arias, University of Kansas, “Engaging Nature and the Environment: Reframing Bartolomé de las Casas’ ‘destruyción’ in the Americas”
• Carlos Jáuregui, University of Notre Dame, and David Solodkow, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, “Utopía biopolítica y “hacer vivir” en Las Casas”

Plenary II
5:45 – 6: 45 p.m. 

Room 105, Ruane Center for the Humanities, Providence College

“‘There was a time when we were friends’: Las Casas, Cortés, and the Conquest Wars”Speaker: Matthew Restall, Penn State University

Reception and Dinner
7 – 9 p.m.

Fiondella Great Room, Ruane Center for the Humanities, Providence College

Remarks by Rev. R. Gabriel Pivarnik, O.P., Vice President for Mission and Ministry, Director of the Center for Catholic and Dominican Studies, followed by plans for future networking among scholars.