Mexican Curiosities: recipe books, cabinets and the history of science

Na Filozofski inštitut 5. februarja prihajata v goste raziskovalca, ki se pri svojem delu osredotočata na primere praks, ki proizvajajo vednost na območju Mehike: Olin Moctezuma-Burns, doktorandka na oddelku za zgodovino in filozofijo znanosti in medicine na Univerzi v Cambridgeu, in Cristian Miguel Torres Gutiérrez, doktorand na oddelku za kulturne študije in orientalske jezike na Univerzi v Oslu.

Obe predavanji bosta potekali v angleščini, povzetki vsebine so dostopni spodaj.

Za ogrevanje lahko prisluhnete tudi intervjuju, ki so ga z Olin Moctezumo izvedli na Radiu Študent.

Predavanji bosta potekali 5. 2. 2024 v sejni soba Filozofskega inštituta ZRC SAZU, Novi trg 2, 3. nadstropje.

17.00: The Mexican Cabinet of Natural History: translating the natural world (Cristian Miguel Torres-Gutiérrez)

In my presentation, I will talk about the Mexican Cabinet of Natural History (1790) as a space of translation for the encounter, transfer and development of natural knowledge in Colonial Mexico between the Spanish and the Nahua peoples in central Mexico. To do so, I will provide an overview of the relationship between scientific knowledge and the establishment of Cabinets of Natural History as epistemic spaces that allowed for the mobilisation of knowledge within colonial networks. Then I will present the responses that emerged from New Spain’s creole scientists, who used indigenous taxonomies to counter the constant influx of European models for classification, namely Linnaeus’s system of classification. Finally, I want to contrast the Linnean and Nahua taxonomies to shed light on the indigenous way of recording observations about the natural world.

18.30: Ts’iib: writing and interpreting Yucatec Maya recipe books (Olin Moctezuma)

My paper will explore the Maya concept of ts’iib, an expansive understanding of writing. Unlike Western conceptions, Ts'iib is not considered permanent; it's a living, cyclical presence that interconnects individuals, communities, the natural world, the cosmos, and different temporalities through recurring actions and patterns. For this, I will present the history of medical recipe books in Yucatan, Mexico, from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, showing the renewal of recipes within the Maya conception of writing. I will contrast this with the interpretation given by early twentieth-century American scholars, William Gates, Ralph Roys, and Elizabeth Stewart, which continues to be prominent in the study of Maya medicine, overviewing the process of these scholars to obscure nuances and adaptations over time in order to access and reconstruct “pure” Maya knowledge. This will show how subjecting ts’iib to traditional Western theories of the word allowed them to depict the Maya peoples as atemporal and unchanging rather than undergoing continual re-writing and renovation.

Fotografija: Uradni oglas za Xcaret, turistični kompleks v Riviera Maya.