Becoming a Book: The Reproduction, Falsification, and Digitalization of Colonial Codices

doi:10.1017/9781108976893.016

Chapter 15 - Becoming a Book: The Reproduction, Falsification, and Digitalization of Colonial Codices

from Part IV - Literacies

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2022

José Ramón Jouve-Martín

Edited by

Rocío Quispe-Agnoli and

Amber Brian

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Rocío Quispe-Agnoli: Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Amber Brian: Affiliation:
University of Iowa

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Summary

This article discusses the transitional nature of early Mesoamerican codices and their evolving status within the field of colonial Latin American literary studies. It does so by (1) exploring the physical and intellectual journeys of the original texts, a process characterized by historically conditioned forms of visual and textual literacy and by the often-divergent interests and goals of the individuals and institutions who came into contact with them; and (2) interrogating the displacements introduced by historical attempts at reproducing them in other formats and media and expanding the corpus through falsification. This chapter’s discussion allows for a revaluation of the way through which these texts came to occupy a place in the contemporary understanding of the colonial literary canon and the role they play in defining a field in transition.

Keywords

Mesoamerican Codices colonial book facsimiles digitalization falsification circulation repatriation history of the book Antiquities of Mexico

Type: Chapter
Information: Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800 , pp. 228 - 242

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108976893.016 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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