2026 Holt Lecture on Middle American Ethnohistory

Commerce Amid Catastrophe: Consumer Goods and Mesoamerican Lives, c. 1600

Laura Matthew Marquette University

This is a 3-day conference for the Association of Nahuatl Scholars. Presenters will share on a variety of topics and there will be translation workshops. The Association of Nahuatl Scholars is an interdisciplinary organization of academics, teachers, and students dedicated to the study of Classical and Modern variants of the Nahuatl language, as well as pre-Contact, colonial, and contemporary Nahua culture.

This is a 3-day conference for the Association of Nahuatl Scholars. Presenters will share on a variety of topics and there will be translation workshops. The Association of Nahuatl Scholars is an interdisciplinary organization of academics, teachers, and students dedicated to the study of Classical and Modern variants of the Nahuatl language, as well as pre-Contact, colonial, and contemporary Nahua culture.

This is a 3-day conference for the Association of Nahuatl Scholars. Presenters will share on a variety of topics and there will be translation workshops. The Association of Nahuatl Scholars is an interdisciplinary organization of academics, teachers, and students dedicated to the study of Classical and Modern variants of the Nahuatl language, as well as pre-Contact, colonial, and contemporary Nahua culture.

Conference Program

THURSDAY, APRIL 16

Vanessa Castañeda is the James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Afro-Latin American Studies at Davidson College, where she teaches and conducts community-engaged research at the intersections of race, gender, food, culture, and political economy in Latin America and the African diaspora. She completed her PhD in Latin American Studies from Tulane University, where she was trained as an anthropologist and Latin Americanist.

Visit the Latin American Resource Center at Family Day at the New Orleans Book Festival! We will be featuring award-winning bilingual YA and children’s books and hosting a book raffle! Family Day includes a diverse selection of local and national authors who will do live readings and sign books throughout the day. Children will find something that appeals to all reading levels, backgrounds, and reading interests.

Vanessa Castañeda is the James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Afro-Latin American Studies at Davidson College, where she teaches and conducts community-engaged research at the intersections of race, gender, food, culture, and political economy in Latin America and the African diaspora. She completed her PhD in Latin American Studies from Tulane University, where she was trained as an anthropologist and Latin Americanist.

Decades of economic globalization have transformed states and social relations, fueling inequality and exclusionary politics around the world.

The Stone Center is excited to offer this opportunity to participate in a professional development workshop on Op-Ed research and writing on Inter-American Relations.