Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: December 8, 2020 at 2:47:47 PM EST > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-LatAm]: Black on Tortorici, 'Sins against Nature: > Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Zeb Tortorici. Sins against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New > Spain. Durham Duke University Press, 2018. Illustrations. 344 pp. > $27.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8223-7154-0; $104.95 (cloth), ISBN > 978-0-8223-7132-8. > > Reviewed by Chad Black (University of Tennessee) > Published on H-LatAm (December, 2020) > Commissioned by Casey M. Lurtz > > In the fall of 2002, newly arrived in Quito, Ecuador, for my > dissertation research, I was anxious and overwhelmed by the abundance > of archival sources at the Archivo Nacional del Ecuador relevant to > my project. An offhand remark about this anxiety to a friend led to > an offer that changed my relationship to the archive entirely--he let > me borrow a digital camera. Digital cameras, de rigueur in the > archive of today, were a novelty at the time. And they were > seductive. The digital camera seduced me with dreams of completeness > and efficiency, and over the course of the next year, I took > thousands of photos of complete manuscripts, racing to identify and > copy every single case that met a set of criteria I made ad hoc to > classify the boxes of folios I worked through. > > As can happen with seduction, I later felt a measure of fear and > regret. I was fearful I might have missed something by reading too > fast, or by the archive's own mis-categorizations. And I felt regret > upon realizing the herculean task of reading again, but more closely, > the tens of thousands of pages I had collected. In the months (years) > that followed, I often re-experienced moments of surprise, joy, > anguish, and disgust in processing again cases I had essentially > forgotten. > > The transition in the first decade of the new century to low-cost > digital reproduction coincided with a series of books that returned > focus to the materiality of archives and archival practices. Zeb > Tortorici's _Sins against Nature_ is both a product of and an > extension to that renewed attention to the archive in the midst of > the digital revolution. And it bears the marks of many of the same > kinds of seductions and desires I experienced for "my documents" > during my time in Quito. > > Tortorici set out originally to write a history of illicit same-sex > relationships in colonial Mexico. What he ended up with, to his > reader's benefit, is something much more than that. As the title > suggests, this book looks at an array of sexual acts that were > categorized in colonial New Spain as _contra natura_, against nature, > including sodomy, necrophilia, bestiality, masturbation, solicitation > by priests, and profanations of divine congress. Generally, scholars > of colonial Latin America have treated these acts as discrete crimes > or sins. In returning them all to the category of the unnatural, > Tortorici helps to reconstruct an intimate and important conceptual > space with implications far beyond individual acts of sexual > transgression. This book is both a history of colonial power and the > category of the unnatural and a meditation on archival practice and > archival history. > > Each chapter explores together three levels of an archival issue and > an "unnatural act," or class of unnatural acts. Tortorici uses the > intimacy of the allegations to interrogate the archive and its > interlocutors as much as the historical events they document, as well > as interrogating the writer and reader. What is more, each chapter > opens with a case or scene that elicits from the reader the shock or > experience of its thematic thrust. In so doing, Tortorici makes the > reader a participant in the dynamic that exists in tension between > the historically documented acts, their archiving, and their > rediscovery. It is effective and not the least bit shy. Indeed, the > introduction itself begins with a minor violating a goat. > > Chapter 1 opens with the violation of a corpse. There is also a case > of fellatio involving liquor, pustules, and semen. These cases elicit > in the reader a visceral response, which Tortorici uses to explore > "practices of archival naming" (p. 29). In the archive, the violation > of a woman's corpse was inscribed as "profanation," a bureaucratic > term that alleviates the archivist charged with its categorization of > the burden of plainly naming the horrifying content of the folio. In > part because of this inscription, the historian (and reader of this > book), though, are led to re-experience the original visceral > revulsion in the shocking details. This is not to say that > Tortorici's treatment of this or any of the hundreds of dreadful > cases is prurient or pornographic. With deftness, compassion, and > significant self-reflection, this book invites its readers to > experience both the intimacy and horror of its details as historical, > as worthy of history. > > The succeeding chapters follow this pattern of documenting the > treatment of "unnatural" sexual crimes in their original moment, as > well as their trajectories through archival categorization, the > historian's discovery, and the reader's experience. Tortorici makes > the reader complicit in his own struggles treating the material. It > is very effective. Chapter 2 turns to voyeurism, through the eyes of > a teenage witness to bathhouse sodomy but also under the researcher's > own gaze. Chapter 3 analyzes in the aggregate the gendered behaviors, > gestures, and signs, and medical inspections used to indict those > accused of unnatural sex. Tortorici sought to collect every extant > case of unnatural sex in the national and regional archives of Mexico > and in collections in the United States and includes digital > photographs of a number of the manuscripts. Chapter 4 details the > ironic archival preservation of animal presence in bestiality cases, > where the judicial impulse was toward animal erasure. Authorities in > colonial New Spain ordered the destruction of the donkeys, mares, > mules, dogs, goats, cows, sheep, and birds violated by mostly young > male perpetrators in an attempt to permanently wipe away community > memory of the act. Yet memory of animals lives on in the archive, > preserved in judicial documents ordering their erasure. Chapter 5, > with particularly contemporary relevance, uses Inquisition records to > demonstrate the church's desire to cover up priestly abuse of the > confessional. Tortorici terms this an archive of negligence, where > institutional interests mattered more than victims and punishments. > And, finally, chapter 6 explores desire through cases involving > masturbation and religious objects, where the ecstatic longing for > experience of the divine results in "unnatural" desire and > profanation. > > Students have told me that they wish this book came with a content > warning but on subsequent discussion have come to recognize the > sensitivity, vulnerability, and complexity with which Tortorici > treats his subject matter. As a work that problematizes the journey > of these stories from original inscription to archive to historian's > use and readers consumption, this book is excellent. Tortorici's > intimate narration of both the cases and his own archive experience > opens consideration and conversation of fundamental ethical questions > in the discipline. My only criticism of the book, though, is that its > approach emphasizes the punctuated chronology of this archival > journey. The reconstruction of individual, intimate moments is adept, > but I was left at times wanting the cases to be more grounded in the > social and cultural changes that occurred across the colonial period > of New Spain. Chapters intersperse cases from different decades or > centuries for thematic reasons, but out of time. The result is a > temporality in three generic blocks: colonial, archival, > contemporary. The seduction of digital reproduction and total > collection can tempt the historian to see the set of cases as a > whole, out of the specificity of their context. Returning the cases > to the evolving social and cultural change over colonial time would > only enhance the claims of this book. > > The seduction, the titillation of archival discovery is not limited > to research on sex. For many historians, it is the experience of > research itself. And for that reason, _Sins against Nature_ holds > broad appeal, not only for colonial Latin Americanists or historians > of sexuality but also for anyone teaching or practicing the craft of > history. > > Citation: Chad Black. Review of Tortorici, Zeb, _Sins against Nature: > Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain_. H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews. > December, 2020. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53171 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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