Research Assistant for Claudia Brittenham, Art History

Opportunity Description:

This research project investigates the use of color in Mesoamerican art in the centuries before and immediately after the Spanish invasion (Mesoamerica is the region corresponding to modern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador), with a particular focus on textile colorants. There are three different components to this research: visual analysis of images of Mesoamerican textiles, found in painted murals and books, on ceramics, and in other media; synthesizing published technical analysis of surviving pigments and dyes, where available; and conducting a review of sixteenth-century sources by Spanish and Indigenous authors describing dyes and other colorants. The undergraduate researcher will begin by compiling information about dye plants in colonial textual sources; over time, responsibilities will expand to include correlating that information with published scientific analyses and compiling images of textiles from prehispanic and early colonial sources to cross-reference with these other kinds of data. I've been studying Mesoamerican color for over 20 years, with particular focus on the colors and materials of wall painting; this work will build on that previous scholarship while taking it in new directions.

Primary Responsibilities: 

The undergraduate researcher will develop facility working with sixteenth century Spanish-language textual sources, build skills analyzing images, and learn how to work with systems for organizing and classifying the data that they accumulate. We'll begin with a list of sources that have already been identified but not yet analyzed; after building competence working with those sources, the student will begin to identify additional resources with support. There may be opportunities for the student to deepen investigation in areas of their own particular interest, and also potentially to present their research in several possible venues.

We will meet biweekly during the academic year to review progress. We'll begin by working through a few examples of each kind of data together, and I will always be available by email for additional queries as they arise.

Application Process: 

Contact Professor Claudia Brittenham at brittenham@uchicago.edu for more information.