Louise M. Burkhart

My research deals with religion in early colonial Mexico, the evangelization of the Nahuas, and their construction of an indigenous Christianity. I work specifically with Nahuatl-language doctrinal and devotional literature, written by Catholic churchmen and by native scholars. Surviving Nahuatl documentation comprises the largest corpus of native-language materials from the Americas. The religious literature reveals processes of accommodation, interpretation, and cultural survival on the part of Nahuas who were learning to live under Spanish rule. More broadly, I am interested in Aztec civilization, the history of colonialism in Mesoamerican, and indigenous folklore and literature. 

My current project is a four-volume series on colonial Nahuatl theater, being published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

•    Nahuatl Theater:  Death and Live in Colonial Nahua Mexico.  Co-edited and co-translated with Barry D. Sell.  Volume 1 or 4-volume Nahuatle Theater set.  Norman:  University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.
•    Before Guadalupe:  The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature.  Albany:  Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, University at Albany, State University of New York, 2001.
•    Holy Wednesday:  A Nahua Drama from Early Colonial Mexico.  Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.
•    The Slippery Earth:  Nahua-Christian Moral Dialogue in Sixteenth-Century Mexico.  Tucson; University of Arizona Press, 1989.
•    Holy Wednesday: A Nahua Drama from Early Colonial Mexico. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.