Last month, Professor Jessica Nelson (UWM History) traveled to Puebla, Mexico to participate in the annual conference of the Rocky Mountain Council on Latin American Studies (RMCLAS), and stuck around for some additional archival research. CLACS is proud to have supported this scholarly travel.
At the RMCLAS conference, Nelson presented the paper “Indigenous Nuns in the New Nation: The lives of women in the Convento de la Nueva Enseñanza, 1791-1830.” The paper discussed documents from Mexico’s Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) that offer new information on the nuns living in the Nueva Enseñanza convent, both their lives and concepts of freedom and religious commitment during Mexico’s transition to independence.
Professor Nelson shared this reflection about her time in Puebla:
“The conference & research trip were very productive. It was great to be in Puebla with other scholars of Latin America, and we also had high attendance rates from the university students [at UPAEP, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla] where the conference was hosted. I challenged myself to present in Spanish, which turned out to be a good idea because the entire audience at my panel were native Spanish-speakers. Another fun part of the conference was the opportunity to partake in some history-themed games. I’ve enjoyed using role-playing games in a lot of my CLACS courses and now I’ve learned about some new ones. Finally, I spent a day back in Mexico City at the Archivo General de la Nación, where I was able to track down some documents that I hadn’t been able to find on a previous trip.”
We look forward to future updates on Professor Nelson’s research and teaching!