Jessica Fowler

Ph. D. in History, University of California, Davis (December 2015)

Dissertation: “Illuminating the Empire: The Dissemination of the Spanish Inquisition and the Heresy of Alumbradismo, 1525-1600.”

My dissertation traces the evolution and dissemination of the heresy of alumbradismo during the course of the sixteenth century in Spain (Toledo, Extremadura, Cordoba) and New Spain. My work shows that the principal agent of diffusion was not the heretics but the processes, personnel, and procedures of the Spanish Inquisition. My project encourages us to consider the Inquisition as a crucial colonial agent and a globalized institution and illustrates how an authority that was both legal and religious ended up defining the legal bounds of orthodoxy but – unwittingly – also creating space for heterodoxy. In my dissertation I study the Inquisition and the spread of alumbradismo during the sixteenth century while my manuscript and larger project traces this phenomenon through the following century including its appearances in Peru and New Spain, but also across the Pacific in Manila.

PUBLICATIONS

Articles

• “Interiority as an Evolving Inquisitorial Category: Discernment, Definition, and Development” for a Special Issue of Culture & History: A Digital Journal entitled “Interiority, Subject, Authority: Conversions and Counter Reformation in the Construction of the Subject (16^th-17^th centuries)” coordinated by Fernando Rodríguez Mediano and Carlos Cañete. (forthcoming)

Book Chapters

• “Illuminated Islands: Luisa de los Reyes and the Inquisition in Manila,” in Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World, ed. Alison Weber (Farham: Ashgate, 2015). (forthcoming)
• “Assembling Alumbradismo: The Evolution of a Heretical Construction” in After Conversion: Iberia and the Emergence of Modernity, ed. Mercedes García-Arenal (Farham: Ashgate, 2015). (forthcoming)

PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS & CONFERENCES

• [August 2015] “Assembling Alumbradismo in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” Presentation and workshop of forthcoming article and direction of future research, Summer Academy of Atlantic History 2015, “Atlantic History in Global Perspective: New Research on Atlantic History and Beyond,” Lancaster, UK.
• [August 2015] “The Productive Inquisition: Constructing Deviance and Networks in the Spanish Empire.” Max-Planck Institute for European Legal History, Summer Academy of Legal History Frankfurt, Germany.
• [July 2015] Panel Organizer: “Defining Religious Deviance, Creating Novel Identities: The Fruits of Persecution.” Paper: “Chasing Heresy, Creating Heretics: Inquisitorial Networks Locating Heretics.” The Portuguese Centre for Global History II International Conference: Knowledge Transfer and Cultural Exchanges, Lisbon, Portugal.
• [June 2015]  “Enlightening Polemics: Arguing Over Alumbrados,” III Simposio Internacional de Estudios Inquisitoriales: Nuevas Fronteras, Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
• [January 2015]  Panel Organizer: “Inquisition: A Legal and Intellectual Network that Defined Religious Practice”. Paper: “Alumbradismo Across the Atlantic: The Spanish Inquisition and Heresy Cross an Ocean” American Historical Association, New York, NY.
• [October 2014] “Inquisitorial Instruction: The Auto de Fe and Edict of Faith as Disseminators of Heresy,” Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, New Orleans, LA.