Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in African American Studies
Episode: Miguel Valerio, "Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539-1640" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Description: Sovereign Joy Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539-1640Â (Cambridge University Press, 2022) explores the performance of festive black kings and queens among Afro-Mexicans between 1539 and 1640. It illustrates how the first African and Afro-creole people in colonial Mexico transformed their ancestral culture into a shared identity among Afro-Mexicans, with particular focus on how public festival participation expressed their culture and subjectivities, as well as redefined their colonial condition and social standing. As the book shows, through performance, Afro-Mexicans affirmed their being: the sovereignty of joy, and the joy of sovereignty.Dr. Miguel Valerio is assistant professor of Spanish at Washington U...