M.A.R.I. Lunch Talk - Nico Barnum, PhD Candidate

Join us for our next Lunch Talk on October 30th at 12 pm!

We’re pleased to welcome Nico Barnum, a PhD candidate in the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies, for his talk, The Grammar of Conversion: An Analysis of Early Nahuatl and K’iche’an Artes.

Barnum's research, inspired by the study of Nahuatl and Mayan languages, is rooted in the disciplines of linguistic anthropology, history, and religious studies. His dissertation focuses on the Nahuatl and K’iche’an grammars produced by friars and Indigenous collaborators during the early part of the viceregal period in New Spain (1521-1821). This talk will provide a brief overview of his dissertation research on five Nahuatl grammars and four K’iche’an (Kaqchikel, K’iche’, and Tz’utujil in this case) language grammars. Barnum argues that these texts reveal the intellectual network among friars, their evolving debates regarding grammar, and the translation methodologies of different religious orders.