Friedrich Fensch
PhD project: “Time Consciousness, Competing Calendar Systems and Colonial Time Practices in Spain and New Spain, 1521–1620”
My PhD project aims to analyse phenomena of temporality in the early modern empire of Spain, taking a closer look into transcontinental exchange processes and using a diverse corpus of sources. I start from the assumption that an increased reflection on the concept of time and an intensified will to organise time structures can be detected since the beginning of the 16th century, also triggered by the intellectual challenge that the so called ‘New World’ represented. My dissertation envisages several areas of analysis: Firstly, I would like to follow a legislative approach that conceives the organisation of the Carrera de Indias and the work of the Consejo de las Indias as an expression of the contemporary belief that economies and societies are malleable in terms of their temporality. This can hopefully be proven by showing the underlying logic behind scheduling principles in royal law decrees and the discussions around the making of them. Secondly, I look at the confrontational situation created by the rigorous enforcement of the Catholic liturgical year against Mesoamerican calendar systems and festival cycles. Here, my plan is to draw on colonial questionnaires, missionary reports and court records, but also to investigate books produced by Indigenous and Mestizo writers in Mexico, their ‘writing back’ and the reaction of the imperial centre. Thirdly, I follow the historiographical and chronological changes of that period, using works by, among others, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and José de Acosta. The goal is to connect their perception of time and construction of the past with the newly emerged imperial context and the state driven interest of knowledge collection and time ordering which resulted in the creation of positions like the ‘Cronista mayor de Indias’.