Dr Joshua Fitzgerald

Teaching and Research Fellow in Latin American History

  • History

Contact details

Address

Street

William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot Place City

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9AG

Availability

  • Drop-in Hours:
    - Weds. 11:00 to 13:00
    - Thurs. 9:00 to 11:00 (or by appointment).

    Office: Room 00M.17 in the William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School

Biography

Background

I am an ethnohistorian researching Nahua (commonly ‘Aztec’) history, art and cultural heritage, especially exploring modalities of Indigenous and Indigenous-Colonial education practices, place- and object-based archives and the local perseverance of knowledge. I study early-modern and pre-colonial materials (1200 to 1700 CE) but also Mexican heritage objects and stories as found in museums, archives and popular media (e.g. video games).

Before joining HCA, I was the 2024-25 Munby Fellow with Cambridge University Library and St John’s College, Cambridge, and from 2020-24 held the Rubinoff Junior Research Fellowship in 'art as a source of knowledge' with Churchill College, during which time I received my MA in Art History from the University of Cambridge. My family and I moved to the U.K. for that postdoctoral research and plan to stay.

Originally from Utah and the western U.S., I developed my initial interest in Mesoamerica and Mexican cultural heritage studying the work of anthropologist and linguist Charles Dibble and the Florentine Codex, under the supervision of Rebecca Horn. Dr Horn introduced me to Nahuatl primary sources, which I then studied closely at the University of Oregon, guided by my supervisors Robert Haskett and Stephanie Wood, both former students of James Lockhart. In 2019, I completed my PhD (History) and Museum Studies certification with the University of Oregon.

 

 

CV

PDF icon 158919.pdf

Qualifications

  • PhD in History (2019), Dept. of History, University of Oregon
  • MA in Art History (2024), Churchill College, University of Cambridge
  • Museum Studies Certification (2018), College of Design, University of Oregon
  • MA in History (2012), Dept. of History, University of Oregon
    • BA in History (2010), Dept. of History University of Utah: Cum Laude; Minor Archaeology
  • ​​​​Associates of Science in General Studies (2008), Salt Lake Community College

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Research summary

My research specialism is precolonial Mesoamerica and early modern Nahuatl Studies of Mexico, focusing on modes of communication and technologies for learning.

My wider interests include: religious history; art, architecture and manuscripts before and after the advent of Christianity in the Americas; visual writing systems and the work of tlacuiloque (painter-scribes); food studies; and Mexican cultural heritage as represented in museums and games (table-top and video games)  

Current research interests

My current projects focus on religious texts and communication modalities in Colonial Mexico, persistence of food-knowledge and material culture, and the art of modern games that weaponises Mexican heritage. I am developing articles and a new book project on a sixteenth-century Nahuatl-Latin lectionary (BFBS Ms 375 'Epistolarium mexicanum') in the Bible Society Collection of the Cambridge University Library, part of the Hidden in Plain Sight project with CUL and Queen Mary University London and the focus of my Munby Fellowship with St John's College (2024-25). My larger project 'The Great Aztec Cover-up', will be a pathfinding study into the early-modern confluence of cultures of correction and the use of corrective paints (what I call 'Nahua white -out') in Mexico, 1300-1600. This project builds upon my first book, _An Unholy Pedagogy_ (CUP 2026), which reassessed the history education and Indigenous conversion in connection with immersive learning practices and local, place-based knowledge at the crux of Spanish colonialism. It identifies the inverse relationship between students and schools (or 'learningscapes'), surfacing how students shape and are shaped by schools. Beyond this, I am also publishing on Mesoamerican visual writing systems and iconology; nineteenth-century board games relating to the artwork and game design of Jose Guadalupe Posada; the history of digital conquistadors and the Spanish Conquest in video games; and a follow-on book project (tentatively: 'Mesoamerica’s Martial Mothers') will identify some of the significant roles of Nahua women in precolonial practises, from warriors to teachers to food-knowledge archivists.

Past research interests

For the University of Cambridge, I have worked toward interdisciplinarity and cross-departmental collaboration. I have just finished a Munby Fellowship in Bibliography with Cambridge University Library, offering the first transcriptions and concerted study of a unique set of Nahuatl gospels in the British and Foreign Bible Society Collection, supervised by Keeper of Rare Books Suzanne Paul as well as investigating Artificial Intelligence tools for Nahuatl Studies there with the ArCH Hub at the University Library Research Institute, led by Amelia Roper. At the same time, as a non-stipendiary Visiting Fellow for the VIEWS Project (Classics), I added comparative examples to the global Visual Culture Studies of the group. As the 2020-24 Rubinoff Fellow in ‘Art as a Source of Knowledge,’ I expanded into History of Art and worked closely with James Fox for the annual Rubinoff Company of Ideas Forum at Hornby Island, Canada. For the 2024 Cambridge Creative Encounters, I co-developed with Adrian Gamboa and Julian Escott the 'Re-Imagining Coyote' pilot project, which is a planned Augmented-Reality infused and artist-responsive curation of nineteenth-century boardgames from Mexico housed in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), Cambridge. I have a background in Museum Studies and, as a researcher with the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research (2021-2025) and the MAA, I have also developed collections research and was a featured guest curator for Anita Herle's COLOUR: Art, Science, & Power (2022). Working with great colleagues in the Americas Archaeology Group, I also developed and co-convened projects with Centre for Research in Arts Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and the Centre of Latin American Studies (e.g. _Multidimensional Dialogues of the Americas_). Before coming to the U.K., I was a graduate fellow on the Digital Florentine Codex project with the Getty Research Institute, which continues to transform how Mexicans and enthusiasts can access that unparalleled resource for Nahuatl Studies. My research initiatives projects and publications have been sponsored by the UKRI AHRC, British Academy/Leverhulme, Getty Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, US Dept. of Education, Global Oregon, the Rubinoff Foundation, and Julie and Rocky Dixon Foundation.
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